Deformare
by Hyakurin9
Summary: Now UPDATED with chapter 12!---- A man is a man. A machine is a machine. But what seperates the two in a world where cybernetics and flesh converge? And when it's a loved one? This is my first RAJQ Fic. Please R
1. Prolog: Headphones

Deformare  
  
Prolog: Headphones  
  
II like this resonance  
  
It elevates me  
  
I don't recognize myself  
  
This is very interesting/I  
  
She had been in this situation before. Perched somewhere, gun in reach, a wire plugged into her neck, awaiting the signal..well a lot of times she didn't bother with the signal. Signals were for gutless rookies or people too anal retentive to go without a plan. She was more the kind of woman who reacted on impulse. She liked to think that she had a sixth sense about it all, but that would be taking it a little too far, it almost seemed rather vain.  
  
"Hey Eve, what's with all the noise?" a sharp and familiar voice cracked through her brain.  
  
Race..that man was something else.  
  
"Seems our John is having a little party," she answered, her voice playful but her lips never parted for the words.  
  
"How's it look?"  
  
"The deal looks like it's going down, but no one's really made much of a move. Give it a little while longer and I'm sure I'll have just cause by then."  
  
Bannon leaned backward in his chair, a smile creeping over his handsome older face. He'd have to admit, he taught the girl well, or at least, he taught her to work his way.  
  
"We have guys waiting as back up. Just let me know of things get out of hand," he urged, but he already knew how Eve would answer. She'd scoff and tell him to stop pretending he was her dad. Or something like that. He had to hold back his own amusement when he heard a throaty grunt break over the COM.  
  
"Right.. So..tell me, what has the Doc got us chasing after this time?" she asked through her neural link.  
  
Race absently tapped on the keypad in front of him.  
  
"Simple smash and grab."  
  
"No shit Sherlock, but any clue as to what's on the disk I'm swiping?"  
  
Her comrade bit his bottom lip. Any kind of curse from her was like acid to his brain. Hell, it came with the trade, they all had mouths that should stay away from their mothers, but with Eve it was different, different to him anyway.  
  
"Some sort of virus the syndicate's cooked up. It seems they have plans to use it against rival cybernetics companies to slow production and sales. Though I have to say, no one's got anything on what the Doc delivers."  
  
"Charming," the young woman replied with a hit of childish humor.  
  
Eve ran a hand through her short, chopped red hair before she allowed her arm to drop back down to her side. Waiting was so damn boring. Patience was supposed to be some sort of virtue, though what the hell it was supposed to bring you was beyond her. But then again she never thought herself to be a very virtuous person. If she had been, then she wouldn't be in the line of work she was in. Line of work, she found that concept rather funny, not because it was humorous, but more so because she couldn't remember what other jobs she had held in life. Actually, she couldn't remember anything before her training with Race for that matter. It bothered her a little, but not enough to go asking. If she were supposed to know, then she would remember it, right?  
  
"Don't worry about it my friend, everything you need to ensure your company's future is right here on this little disk."  
  
Eve darted her green eyes to the right as the conversation she was eavesdropping on suddenly grabbed her attention.  
  
Bingo.  
  
She reached around behind her and tore the cord plugged into her neck free and stood up. Her red hair caught up in the wind from the considerable height she was at. Standing on the roof a large building before doing something rather dangerous always gave her a sort of rush that she couldn't explain, like it was a part of her life long ago, the life she couldn't remember. Eve adjusted the straps on her soft bullet vest and took a hold of the gun in her thigh holster, which was wrapped tightly around the tight black jumpsuit she wore. She stepped over toward the skylight in front of her, her excited green eyes probing the forms below her.  
  
"Party time," she spoke, this time mouthing the words instead of only saying them with her brain.  
  
* Ohohoh, what the hell is going on here? Well, I guess you'll have to keep reading to find out.  
  
Deformare: Deformed, distort. (Italian) 


	2. Act 1: Undo

Deformare  
  
Act 1: Undo  
  
Undo  
  
If you're bleeding  
  
Undo  
  
And if you're sweating  
  
Undo  
  
If you're crying, darling  
  
Undo  
  
His boots cracked down on shards of broken glass; his eyes stung by the thin cloud of gun smoke still hanging in the air. You'd think he'd be used to it, but then again there were a lot of things that people would never get used to. He surveyed the room for a brief moment. Bodies strewn about like useless rag dolls lying in their own blood. Windows shot out and anything else that could have been made of the same material was blow to bits.  
  
"Jesus Christ, Eve. Did you have to make this place look like a fuckin' war zone?" Race snapped as he watched her disarm and place her weapons where they belonged.  
  
"Hey, when I came through that fuckin' skylight these bastards made it into a kill or be killed situation," she answered, pointing her finger up toward the roof for extra emphasis.  
  
"Watch your mouth," Race huffed.  
  
Eve rolled her eyes and walked over to him, her boots crunching the glass on the floor below her. She held up a disk between her index and middle fingers, offering it to him. After all, it was the treasure they were chasing to begin with.  
  
"Yes Dad," she countered him, her tone slathering sarcasm all over the last word.  
  
That hurt. That really fuckin' hurt, and there was no way that she would ever know. She'd never know what happened; never know how she got to where she is now. She'd never know that every time he looked her in the face all he saw was his little girl. His Ponchita. And he hated her for that. He hated that she walked about in some dream world where she didn't hold the same pain that he did.  
  
Race took the disk from her hand and tucked it into his breast pocket.  
  
"Fine. Alright, lets get the hell out of here."  
  
*  
  
It was one of those moments, you know, the kind where everything seems to slow down, like you're watching it in slow motion. But at the same time there's nothing you can do to make it stop, you're to fixated on watching that you can't stop whatever awful thing is about it happen. It was one of those moments.  
  
"Jesse! Watch it!" Johnny screamed as loud as he could.  
  
Bang.  
  
That's when you realize you could have done something. You saw it but you didn't stop it from happening. All you could do is stand there and watch her, watch her fall to the ground like some sort of bird who'd just had their wings ripped out. Watch the terror and shock that washed over her eyes in that brief moment. But you didn't do anything, you just watched.  
  
He didn't know how many times he played that scene over and over in his head. It was years ago, but it would never leave him alone. Like Jesse's ghost just wouldn't let him rest because he had the power to save her, but he didn't. Or maybe it was his own guilt that wouldn't let him forget it. No, he could never forget it, but at least, move passed it. She was more to him then just some girl he hung out with, she was his best friend, his confidant, she was more than any other person could be because she was the only one who stuck around. Everyone else was just some sort of fleeting idea of a friend, everyone else would eventually go away and he always accepted that fact. But Jesse was always there. And then she wasn't.  
  
"Hey Johnny? Where do you think we'll be ten years from now?" she asked him that one night over a beer and late night television.  
  
How could he answer that, really? He hadn't really thought about it, he just figured things would go and he'd just do whatever he wanted when the time came.  
  
"I dunno..I'll probably take over where ever Dad leaves off, I guess," it was a lame answer, but it was the only one he could gave back then, especially with his mind swimming in the six pack he'd already downed.  
  
That's another thing he loved about her when they got older. The two of them could just sit back, have a few cold ones, talk and not really care about the answers they came up with. He never thought that those good times would end forever, and so abruptly.  
  
"Mr. Quest?" his name jolted him back to reality.  
  
"Yes, Mise?"  
  
"You have a call on line two, it's Dr. Huxley."  
  
"Thanks," he offered rather weakly. He didn't care to speak to anyone right now, especially not from one of his competitors.  
  
*  
  
Eve slung half of herself over the railing of the upper level in the shooting range. She really wanted to go home but she'd left a much-needed bag in her locker down there. It was rather loud as she spotted Race firing at a cardboard sheet cut into the familiar shape of a human being. He never really came down here, and she figured it made sense. He spent years working as an agent and then later as a bodyguard, he never told her who his clients were, but she really didn't have to know.  
  
"You're mad," she pointed out from her lazy spot in the railing after he'd stopped to put in another clip.  
  
"No I'm not," he answered flatly.  
  
"You only come down here when you're mad," she urged.  
  
Bannon shot her a glare from the other side of the room to which she only smirked. Sometimes it was fun getting under that man's skin.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"The Doc's got another assignment for us. Nothing right away but something to keep in mind," she answered as she wandered down the steel staircase.  
  
"Oh yeah? Who's the lucky fellow this time?" He asked as he took a few more shots at the cardboard.  
  
"Well, I wasn't really paying much attention, you know how she likes to drag things on, but the last name is Quest. Seems the company's getting a little ahead of it's time," she answered, pulling her large red duffle bag out of her locker.  
  
Race froze. Did she just mutter the name he thought he heard? He knew Johnny was in charge now while Benton was off doing his own research, but what the fuck? Was the kid really doing a little too well right now that it would pique the Doc's attention? Race lowered his gun and turned to look at Eve who was busy slamming her locker door shut.  
  
"Did you just say Quest?"  
  
She looked up at him, her green eyes questioning. "Yeah, why? Do you know them or something?"  
  
"Maybe..maybe not."  
  
He always gave her that answer when it came to dealing with someone or something that was in his past. She could understand him not wanting to say anything because, quite frankly, she didn't have anything to share in return.  
  
"You know, it's kind of funny. For some reason when she said that name it seemed really familiar to me. Like it was a part of my life somewhere, you know what I mean?" She couldn't help but blurt out. "Are you thinking the same thing?"  
  
Race's eyes shot open wide. How could she remember? She wasn't supposed to remember.  
  
"Wha-what do you mean?" he asked shakily.  
  
"I dunno, it's like this whisper, in the back of my mind somewhere."  
  
"A whisper?"  
  
"Yeah. I dunno if all cyborgs like me feel it, but I get this voice, but not quite a voice, it's more like some sort of presence. Sometimes it tells me things, most times it's quiet."  
  
"I see.." 


	3. Act 2: I Miss You

Deformare  
  
Act 2: I Miss You  
  
I miss you  
  
But I haven't met you yet  
  
I know your habits  
  
But wouldn't recognize you yet  
  
It was one of those days. You know, the kind where you don't want to do a damn thing except waste away in front of the TV in your pajamas? Yeah, it was one of those days, and life just seems that much more awful when you're stuck having to work. Not that work was all that severe. In fact the only thing she really had to do was gather information and pass it along. But even that seemed like it was too much of an effort in comparison to the thought of couch potato bliss.  
  
Not to mention her partner was taking his sweet ass time getting there. She and Race had agreed to meet up at a café, small, quite, and unsuspicious. But the time they agreed on was over a half an hour ago, and Eve had to dismiss the waiter a couple hundred times as she waited for him. She growled through a huff of air as she pulled her green leather jacket from her shoulders and slung it into the chair beside her. The red head readjusted the thin-framed sunglasses perched on her nose before leaning on the glass out door table, supporting her head in her hand.  
  
'He's lucky he didn't get the brain augmentation like everyone else did. If he had he'd get a nice lashing right about now,' she thought under the shade of the large table umbrella.  
  
Eve slumped backward in her chair; crossing her arms over the slightly loose charcoal tank she wore and crossed one black panted leg over the other. You know, it took a lot to make her mad. And she was starting to get mad right about now. She played with the small gold locket hanging from her neck. She always played with it when she was mad, annoyed, anxious, whatever else, like it was some sort of idiosyncrasy she must have had once and carried over into her new life.  
  
She looked up. "It's about fuckin' time you got here," she spat without moving.  
  
"Sorry, the Doc stopped me on my way out of the office," he apologized, though it didn't seem to please her.  
  
"You act like you couldn't have had someone contact me," Race could tell she was scowling behind her sunglasses.  
  
"Give me a Goddamn break, would'ja?"  
  
Eve uncrossed her arms and leaned back into her previous position. The young woman pulled her shades from her eyes and perched them on her head, pushing her bangs back and away from her face.  
  
"So..you got anything?" she questioned.  
  
Race sat himself down in the rot iron chair across from his partner and settled himself before speaking. He leaned forward on the glass, his arms supporting his body.  
  
"The Doc doesn't want you to know anything about the case," he said flatly. He knew as soon as the information registered in her head there would be an uproar. Some people were easy to predict in that respect.  
  
"What?!" she yelped, her eyebrows furrowed.  
  
"It's for your own good. You're going to just be the go to man on this one, no information, just do as you're told."  
  
"This is bullshit! The last case was the same deal!" Eve spat.  
  
"No, last time you didn't know what was on the disk, you knew everything else," Race countered.  
  
"This is fuckin' dick, and you know it Race. I have every right to know what's going on. How the hell am I supposed to do my job effectively if I'm left out of the loop?"  
  
"Like I said, Eve, it's for your own good," he answered, fishing in his coat pocket for his pack of cigarettes.  
  
His partner was back to sitting slouched in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest again. She watched him through a scowl as he placed a butt on his lip and brought his hands up to light it. Angrily she reached forward and took her own fag from his pack and pulled a lighter from her jacket beside her. She looked up to find him now angry as well.  
  
"What?"  
  
"They're bad for you, you know," he grumbled.  
  
"Do as I say and not as I do, huh? Besides, it's not like I have real lungs anyway.." She answered back, blowing the smoke out in a steady stream. She smirked at the evil eye he was giving her, hell; she always smirked when he gave her a disapproving look. She figured it was the kind of banter she and her father must have gone through a million times. But she couldn't remember it, and Race was a suitable substitute for now.  
  
"So..this whole meeting is a waste then, I guess," she stated, taking another drag.  
  
"A chance for a decent meal is never a waste. But in the other respect, I guess it would be."  
  
"Hmm," it was really the only thing she was clever enough to reply with at the moment. She usually had something to say, she always had something to say with that mouth of hers, but she was a little more in thought then she wanted to portray. She played with her locket again as she waited for some sort of reply from Race, but it didn't come. All she got from him was a puff of smoke from his lungs.  
  
He watched her turn whatever it was on that chain of hers around with her fingers. She always did that, but she never let anyone close enough to see what it was, and she was defensive if anyone asked. Must have been some sort of chic thing, and Lord knew he didn't have a clue what made women so Goddamn crazy. He flicked the ash on his cigarette to the ground below the table. He could tell she was thinking about something.  
  
The Doc wasn't going to allow her "the in" on the case, which she found really unusual, even for that crazy broad. But there had to be some sort of reason for it, the Doc didn't do things for no reason. She turned the locket over again. She couldn't remember how it had gotten into her possession, only a sketchy memory of a young boy with blonde hair. She couldn't make out his face, but she knew he was smiling, and she knew she had been happy to receive it from him. But whoever he was, and through everything she didn't know, in her heart, she knew she missed him.  
  
"Actually, Race, I'm not very hungry. I think I'm going to head home," she stated and turned to pull her jacket over her shoulders.  
  
"Are you sure?" he asked as he watched her flick her cigarette butt out into the street before standing up.  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll see you later," she called, and walked away, replacing her sunglasses over her eyes.  
  
*  
  
His well oiled shoes clacked over the marble flooring that led out to the lobby, plush carpeting on either side of the walkway. He adjusted the long coat slung over his forearm as he approached the counter his secretaries were seated at. He loved this part of the day, lunch break. Just when the stress of the work place gets to be almost unbearable there's a lunch break. Some people appreciate the end of the day more, and yeah, sure, the end of the day is great, but going home usually entails more work that everyone ignores. That's the beauty of the lunch break the only work required is eating and shooting the shit.  
  
"Oh, Mr. Quest, are you going to lunch now?" Mise, his sweetly young and beautiful Asian assistant asked from the counter.  
  
"Yes I am. Hold all my calls until I come back, please," she stated as he breezed by the desk.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Today's luncheon was better than most, probably because of the company that would be waiting for him when he arrived. Hadji had flown in from Bangdalor for the weekend, and though he had a tight schedule, he made sure to make room for lunch with his adopted brother.  
  
Jonny pushed through the revolving doors of the office building, a slight grin on his face as he spotted the limo parked outside waiting for him. It wasn't the fashionable car that made him grin; it was the fact that he was escaping in jaws of working class hell. Yeah, that would bring a smile to anyone's lips, especially the kind of man who was never the type to be tied down to anything.  
  
His chauffer smiled emptily and greeted him before he pulled the car door open for his boss. Jonny nodded and threw his long coat in before himself.  
  
You know, a few years ago he would have had to make covert arrangements to get out of the building, there was always someone out to get him. Hell, when in his life was there a time when someone wasn't? Yeah, finally, Jonathan Quest was just your normal wealthy businessman. But he couldn't help the instincts that had been instilled in him; his eyes ran over the crowed streets around him. People walking in business attire talking with associates as they also made a run for their sanity, or rather, lunch. Mixed into it all were the normal Joes, tourists, regular people going about their lives, probably so into their own thoughts and concerns that a bomb could have gone off and they wouldn't noticed. He sort of envied those people.  
  
He finally turned to seat himself inside of his car after casually glancing across the street, not so much for the hunt, but more as an unmediated action. And that's when he saw her. He stopped in mid motion, his eyes wide and unbelieving. He stared, not because he wanted to, but more because of the shock that slammed into his heart.  
  
It was like that slow motion moment again. The people walking on the other side of the street slowed, their jaunts turned into nearly frozen steps, slowly fading into blurs of color as she became the focal point of the interlude. She stood beside a bus stop sign, chopped red hair blown to the side by the wind, hands shoved into the front pockets of her green leather jacket. In a slow, graceful movement she pulled her sunglasses from her eyes and propped them on her head. Her eyes were green, almond shaped and bright.though somewhat sad and vacant.  
  
Time ripped back to its normal pace as a bus wiped her from his vision. Jonny stood up straight, his hands clamping around the rubber lining of the car door. He waited impatiently for the bus to move, to see that woman again, to see Jessie again. With a mechanical whine the bus lurched forward and rode off, revealing the empty bus stop.  
  
"Sir..is everything alright?"  
  
Jonny turned and looked over at his driver. "Yes, yes I'm alright," he stated, and ducked into the limo. 


	4. Act 3: Possibly Maybe

Deformare  
  
Act 3: Possibly Maybe  
  
As much as I definitely enjoy solitude  
  
I wouldn't mind perhaps  
  
Spending little time with you  
  
Sometimes, sometimes  
  
Possibly maybe  
  
Hell would freeze over before she let some crazy doctor keep her out of a mission, especially one that seemed to hit close to home. Not so much for herself, but more so for her partner. She had a feeling he was closer to the whole damn thing then he was letting on. She wasn't an idiot, she could see right through his "maybe..maybe not" answer. But it just didn't add up that she wasn't allowed to know the details of the situation.  
  
Maybe she was involved in the whole mess and didn't know it. That didn't seem like a suitable answer, it had to be something else. But then again, why did the name Quest seem so familiar? Maybe she'd seen a commercial on TV about it and that's why it was stuck in her brain. The media was damn good at things like that, or it might have been just something she came across once or twice while surfing the net. That was a better answer, not a good one per say, but a better one.  
  
'Well, if she's going to keep me out, I guess I'll have to take matters into my own hands,' she said inwardly.  
  
Eve slowed her pace and ducked into an alley at her right. She was going to have to investigate on her own, and that required being able to find out just where in the hell the main building was, and that would require getting online. Normally she'd just plug herself in, but, it wasn't exactly normal, it wasn't like she could just walk into some computer store and jam a USB port into her neck.  
  
From her pocket, Eve produced a PDA; much more advanced then what people were using today, but a PDA none-the-less. Her eyes shot back and forth across the alley before she pulled a small cord from the side of the device and plugged it into one of the four ports on the base of her neck.  
  
Thank God for wireless Internet access.  
  
*  
  
Race sighed as he snubbed out the third cigarette he'd smoked since Eve walked off. She was pissed and that was to be expected, but it really was for her own damn good. He'd spoken to the Doc just before he got to their meeting and told her that his partner had recognized the name after she'd been told, and so she gave him the order to knock her off the assignment. Truthfully he was surprised the Doc had even attempted to let her on in the first place, especially after he'd been told after her procedure in the beginning that anything that encompassed her past could trigger old memories.  
  
"She must never know or hear of anything from her past, Mr. Bannon," the Doc's sweet English accent rolled off of her words.  
  
"And what of me?" he asked, his voice hesitant.  
  
"Her ghost has yet to manifest it's self inside of her shell, knowing you know will only be attributed to her present, so you have no worries."  
  
God, that seemed like yesterday.  
  
He pushed himself up out of his chair. There wasn't anything here for him except things he'd rather forget.  
  
*  
  
This was why she never took public transportation. Eve tried her hardest to conceal her scowl behind her sunglasses as she sat cramped up on a plastic orange bench seat on the bus. Every fuckin' time she got on one of these damn things she got sandwiched between a senile old bag lady and a fat smelly guy with pit stains and a lecherous smile. Why in the hell did only riff raff take the Goddamn bus?  
  
Only one more stop, that's what she kept telling herself, one more stop and she'd be off of the wretched thing. One more stop and she'd be free of the vial smell of the man beside her and mumblings about Howdy Dowdy on the other. And from the snot filled snort from the fat guy she decided that walking home would be a better way to travel once she was off.  
  
The bus finally whined and rumbled to a stop on the opposite side of the street of her destination, and Eve was the first one on her feet as it slowly rolled to a stop. She climbed out as quickly as possible, not even attempting to look back at the evil thing. God, she was edgy..it must be getting close to that time of the month.  
  
Her boots clunked over the gray concrete sidewalk as she stepped up beside the bus stop sign. The massive structure that was Quest Enterprises expanded up and over the roof of the bus that was only now departing. The building of glass and heavy black metal almost glittered in all it's false idol-hood over the New York City block it swallowed up. She was almost happy she would be apart of something that would tear that place apart. She hated conglomerate trash, even if it was attributed to science.  
  
The young woman shoved her hands into the front pockets of her jacket. She'd seen the floor plans of the building during her little search, but she was too preoccupied with her disdain for the bus that she hadn't thought of a way to get in undetected. She could just walk in, go ape shit and kill a couple people before finding what she needed and ducked out. Nah, that Wyatt Earp cowboy bullshit only worked in movies. She could just ask to see the president, but that wasn't a good idea either. It wasn't like she really knew what she was looking for anyway. If she could get inside and hack into their network she could download everything on the server and then sort through it all later. But it was the getting inside part that was still the problem.  
  
'Maybe I should just case the joint and come back tonight,' she finally decided. It was a solution that would be the most beneficial.  
  
Christ, it was turning into more work then she originally thought.  
  
She stood where she was for a little while, waiting for the cross walk signal to turn green so she'd be able to cross the street without getting run over by some lunatic taxi driver or a road raging salary man. She watched the cars lazily as her mind drifted back to the thought of being on her couch, she's almost forgotten about it. Her interest piqued when she spotted a sleek black limousine park at the curb in front of the building. She flicked her wrist over and glanced at her watch. One o'clock p.m., yeah, it was lunchtime.  
  
From the revolving front door a tall, blonde executive jaunted toward the car. Executive, she thought, because no mail boy rode to lunch in a limo. Hell the mail boy was lucky if the other working stiffs in the office let him into the break room for a Goddamn sandwich. She watched him toss his coat into the car as he bent slightly to get in. She raised an eyebrow. The way he casually investigated the scene..that was the act same way Race taught her.  
  
He spotted her.  
  
She froze.  
  
He stared at her.  
  
She didn't move.  
  
His eyes were wide. He knew her.  
  
She pulled her sunglasses back over her head.  
  
His expression deepened. He really did know her.  
  
Her eyes snapped open.  
  
Like a broken levy her mind was flooded with images, the faceless boy who gave her, her locket, that same boy over and over again. So many scenes he was playing in and none of them lasted long enough for her to grasp them. None of them lasted long enough for her to verify that she remembered them.  
  
The bus raced up beside her. She knew him. Not because she remembered him, at least, not because of her conscious thought. But the whisper..that presence told her she knew him.  
  
She scrambled onto the bus, stumbling toward the back, gripping the over- head rail for balance as the driver put the vehicle into gear and drove off. She sat down; her hands gripping the sides of her head, her breath almost a shallow pant. What the hell just happened? Who the hell was he?  
  
"Jonny.." She breathed. 


	5. Act 4: Pagan Poetry

Deformare  
  
Act 4: Pagan Poetry  
  
Morse coding signals  
  
They pulsate and wake me up  
  
From my hibernation  
  
He didn't know how long he had been standing there. Minutes, hours? Did it matter? He'd lost everything in one second; one fuckin' second is all it took to tear her away from him. He just stood there in the dim room; his little girl sprawled on the hospital bed with wires and tubes hanging out of her like some sort of grotesque octopus; the steady buzz of the flat line of her heart monitor blaring dully in his ears.  
  
So that's it? It's all over just like that? It's never like this in movies. Maybe that's why people like movies so damn much; they're never like real life.  
  
"Mr. Bannon?" a sweet English accent asked from behind him.  
  
He didn't move.  
  
"If you're going to ask me to leave the room, I'm not," he answered flatly.  
  
He could feel the woman behind him move closer, her heels clacking over the tarazel flooring. He almost shuttered as her hand gripped his forearm.  
  
"I know it must be hard to loose someone so young."  
  
"I doubt you could fathom it."  
  
"I'm glad you made Dr. Quest leave," Race snapped around at her comment.  
  
"What?"  
  
"If he was here, I wouldn't be able to proposition you," she smiled at his questioning look. "What if I told you it didn't have to end this way?"  
  
"Unless you can build a time machine, lady, it has to end this way," he answered darkly. He didn't appreciate whatever bullshit was about to pour from her mouth. His heart and soul were in torment, who the fuck was she to play with that?  
  
She laughed slightly at his words in spite of the grave situation. "I know it sounds rather ridiculous, but what if I told you in one year's time I could give you your daughter back?"  
  
Race scoffed, "I'd say someone needs to put you away somewhere."  
  
"Cybernetics, Mr. Bannon, it's the wave of the future, and the key to saving those that shouldn't have their lives stolen from them. Give me your daughter and within a year I can return Jessica to you."  
  
"Bullshit," Race spat.  
  
"Oh, I assure you, I'm very serious about this. You help me in my development, and I give you back your daughter..though she won't quiet be Jessica any more, but it's better than burying her. Am I right?  
  
*  
  
He couldn't help but stare at his brother from across the white clothed table. He couldn't help but watch him sort of poke and push his food around on the plate in front of him. He couldn't help but notice the kind of far off look in his eyes. He couldn't help but think it was kind of unfair of his brother to ignore him when he'd spent God knows how long a plane just to see him. But that was Jonny for you, always thinking of something else when there was something more important right in front of him. Jesus, you would think he'd grow out of that shit by now.  
  
Hadji set his fork down on the edge of his plate rather loudly, not loud enough to make a scene, but loud enough to make a point. Jonny looked up from the mess he was making to find his brother rather cross.  
  
"Sorry Hadj.."  
  
Hadji's brow softened, "care to tell me what is on your mind, my friend?"  
  
"If I told you, you'd say I'm crazy," Jonny pointed out, and with good reason.  
  
"Jonny, most of what comes out of your mouth I find rather absurd, but that has never stopped you before," Hadji countered him.  
  
His brother gave him a 'shut the fuck up' look to which the sultan could only smile. God, his missed this kind of banter.  
  
The young Mr. Quest returned to poking his food, somewhat reluctant to answer the question that had been posed. He knew that before he could finish what he wanted to say Hadji would dismiss him and come up with some sort of logical answer for the whole thing. But that was Hadji for you; always the level headed one with all the answers.  
  
The question had caused an uncomfortable silence between the two; the only noise that passed between them was the slopping sound of Jonny's food being smashed into something unrecognizable and the scrap of Hadji's knife on the ceramic plate. There wasn't much in this world that could make Jonathan Quest keep his big mouth shut, and the idea of what it could be only caused his adopted brother worry.  
  
"How is the Adam project coming along?" maybe the change of subject would spark up a conversation.  
  
"I saw someone today," Jonny stated rather sheepishly, his abrupt answer throwing Hadji off a bit.  
  
"Oh? And who was this someone?" the sultan took another bite from his fork.  
  
Quest sighed, it was a long sigh, the kind of sigh you expel when you don't really want to tell your parents the truth. Like when you don't want to fess up to breaking something, or when they find your bong under your bed.  
  
"On my way over here..when I was getting into the limo, I glanced across the street, and I saw..I saw her," he stressed the her part, he couldn't bring himself to say her name, even after the amount of time that had passed since the accident. He stressed it also so that Hadji would know whom he was talking about, and so that he would know not to say her name either.  
  
Hadji's face fell.  
  
"Jonny.."  
  
"I know, I know!" he replied a bit too loud, throwing his hands up and falling back in his seat in the same motion. He knew it was going to come to this, he knew he was being stupid, but how the fuck do you change how you feel?  
  
"It was hard for me to loose her too, but you must learn to let people go. Let her ghost rest in peace, my friend, the same way you learned to let your m-"  
  
"When my mother died, it was different. I didn't really know her," Jonny answered darkly, his face turned toward the window to his left. "I know what I saw today, Hadj, denying it would only be lying to myself."  
  
"Four years is long enough to learn how to deal with grief, Jonathan," Hadji knew he would piss him off when he said his full name. It was actually rather strange to hear, just like it was strange to hear his brother calling himself Jon once they got out of high school. But saying Jonathan was like hammering the nails in his cross a few more times.  
  
Jon turned from the window to stare at his brother, "grief is for dead people, Hadji, the woman I saw today was far from dead."  
  
*  
  
The warm ocean breeze whipped through her hair. The feel of the wind over her body gave her a different feeling, like she was free. Not in the caged bird sense, but more like she didn't feel guilty for neglecting the more important things in life, she could enjoy the simple fact that she was young, strong, and completely independent of the powers that be. Yeah sure, it's a foolish notion, but at least she could believe it, even if it was only for that day.  
  
"It was such a good idea to go out on the boat today," she could hear herself say it.  
  
"Yeah it was," he has a face now, the boy anyway.  
  
She stood up on the bow of the boat, her eyes closed and her nose inhaling the smell of the sea. Yeah, she liked this feeling, but you always love the things that don't last very long. That which is impermanent is the most beautiful creature of all.  
  
"Hey, come over here, there's something I want to give you."  
  
With a skeptical look she took the long blue velvet case from him.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Why ask when you can just open it and find out?"  
  
She gave him the "shut the fuck up" look and he grinned at her. That funny lopsided grin she had forgotten, or rather, was stored somewhere deep in her mind.  
  
"Oh my God, it's gorgeous.." She took the locket from the box.  
  
"I put a picture of all of us in it, see. Me, our dads and Hadj."  
  
She looked down at the simple gold cover, a thin Celtic knot design around it's edge, inside would be so many smiling faces, all of them welcoming and warm. Family. She smiled that sort of sad, beautiful smile she alone possessed. How a smile could be sad and warm at the same time is an oxymoron, but isn't that life it's self? Isn't that how humanity is in general? One large mass of walking oxymoron.  
  
Tenderly she opened it, awaiting the faces, awaiting the love that would pour out of it, awaiting the part that will tell her she's human.  
  
It was empty.  
  
Eve sat on the edge of her bed, her body clad in her covert operations garb, and her mind still spinning from the appearance of the boy who now had a face. She closed it with a sad sort of sigh and clasped it around her neck where it belonged. With a reluctant push she stood, feeling around to make sure her boots were tight and secure. Sweeping her gaze across the room, Eve glanced at herself in the long mirror beside her bed, taking in the sight of her reflection.  
  
"Why do I suddenly feel like this body isn't my own?" 


	6. Act 5: It's Not Up To You

Deformare  
  
Act 5: It's Not Up to You  
  
I wake up  
  
And the day feels  
  
Broken  
  
A man is a man. A machine is a machine. Two completely separate entities, two completely separate orders of existence. Man, created in the image of God, prefect until the fall from paradise. Flawed. Machine, created in the image of man, flawed from its conception. Imperfect. What truly sets these creatures apart is a machine's ability to learn, but not to change. Machines do not hold what man so arbitrarily labels the sense of purpose, self-awareness and the soul. But what happens when the two become one? What happens to the soul when flesh becomes cybernetics? When the brain becomes electronic? When the heart is no longer made of meat?  
  
If the body is merely a vessel for the soul, then can that vessel be made of metal? Does the shell not matter, or must we all be made of the earth? Must we all become ashes and dust in the end?  
  
What is that whisper in the back of my being?  
  
What is that presence I feel?  
  
I am the first of my kind, and if there is a god, I will be the only one of my kind.  
  
*  
  
"In Nome de padre et figli et spirtu santi," she could feel her body going through the motions. One hand lightly touched her forehead then down to her chest before it crossed over from one shoulder to the other. A motion, a familiar motion, one she must have done a thousand times before, but strangely new at the same time.  
  
Religion. She almost scoffed at it. What place did she have here anyway?  
  
Eve rubbed the beads of her rosary between her fingers, feeling the smooth caress of them against her skin. Her skin? But was it her skin? No, who ever she was before that skin has rotten and returned to the earth. Returned to what it was before God made it something else. She looked down at her hands, the light pouring down from the stained glass above her casting strange shadows and light on her palms.  
  
Whose hands are these?  
  
"You seem troubled, my child."  
  
Troubled? Maybe.  
  
Her eyes rose to meet those of the priest beside her. The older man's gentle face stood out against the contrast of his black attire. If God is all loving, why do his messengers dress as though they are in mourning? His eyes searched hers, looking for something, looking for what may be wrong, looking, looking.  
  
"You can't find it either, can you?" her voice was crisp and sharp against the air around her.  
  
He stammered, trying to find the right words to say. A quote from the good book always helped at times like these, but he was at a loss. All the while he watched as that sad but beautiful smile swept over her lips, not in any kind of mocking gesture, but more like ironically sad comprehension.  
  
"All things are found in time, child."  
  
Eve looked away from him and up at the icon of Christ's crucified body behind the alter; the tree of life painted on glass stretching up and over the statue.  
  
"But what am I looking for?" her voice was hushed this time, like she was speaking to no one but herself.  
  
"Humanity."  
  
Her rosary slipped from her fingers and hit the floor between her feet.  
  
*  
  
She was really damn good at this, making him wait. It was almost like she got off on watching him squirm. He'd never been a very patient man, hell, he'd be the first to admit that, but every goddamn time he sat in her office she did this to him. It was almost as if she was trying to mount up suspense or something. Fuck the British; they live for this theatric bullshit.  
  
Race rapped his fingers on the thick wooden arm of the chair he sat in, his face taunt and annoyed as he silently cursed and stared down the woman in front of him. If she wasn't so good at busting his balls he probably would have been checking her out since she was facing away from him, but he'd learned his lesson in dealing with women who where too smart for their own good.  
  
Bannon let out a loud sigh, "Elizabeth, what did you call me in here for?"  
  
She didn't answer him right away, which wasn't making Race any happier. She stood behind her large oak desk, her plush brown leather chair beside her. She faced the window, her attention toward the streets below, her arms crossed and hugging one another. She could feel a few stray blonde hairs escape the confines of the French twist she had it all wrapped up in, but she didn't bother to push them out of her face. With a crack from her heels Elizabeth turned around, her arms still crossed over her chest, her hips swaying with her feminine graces. Slowly she reached toward the edge of her desk to support herself before she sat down in her chair to face her.."employee".  
  
Elizabeth adjusted her thick-rimmed maroon glasses. Race couldn't help but run a glace over her thin body, which sat strangely out of place behind her large desk.  
  
"Eve hasn't been in contact for a while. Yamada tried to reach her through his electronic brain a few hours ago but she's gone offline. Would you happen to know why?"  
  
Race shifted in his seat. How the hell would he know why Eve wasn't answering her calls, it was her own damn business, not his.  
  
"How should I know, Doc?" he tried not to sound annoyed.  
  
"You should know she is your partner after all," Bannon watched her as she lit a cigarette.  
  
"Well, she was pissed that she was knocked off the next case, she's probably just pulling that silent treatment crap you women are so good at." He got the 'shut the fuck up' face for that one. "Sorry."  
  
"I do hope you didn't use your wondrous charm on her when you told her she was off. Since you are so eloquent in your speech, Roger," that goddamn accent always made her sound so fuckin' refined, even when she was cutting him down.  
  
Race rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and slummed forward in his chair.  
  
"Can I ask you something, Elizabeth?"  
  
The Doc exhaled the smoke in her lungs before crossing her legs and swinging her chair to the right slightly, her thick black skirt suit hugging her body and shifting as she moved. "Yes you may."  
  
"Why the Quests?" his voice was flat, his face serious. Why the hell did this woman want to mess with his family? He still considered them that, though he was sure the others had already forgotten about him and under terms that were not so friendly.  
  
She snubbed out her cigarette in the crystal ashtray beside her. She seemed to consider what she was about to say before she opened her mouth. Sometimes things were hard to explain, especially when the situation was so delicate.  
  
"You may know that Quest Enterprises expanded out into the cybernetics market only a few years ago, where as Huxley and Beckett has been developing cyber parts for much longer. Young Mr. Quest has the advantage of having some of the finest scientists in the world at his disposal where as we..well, we have the more lucrative of the bunch. My intelligence tells me that Jonathan has a project up his sleeve, a prototype by the name of 'Adam'."  
  
Race sat further forward on his seat. What she was saying had to be true, the Doc never went after just anyone.  
  
"I'm sure you can only guess what that project is, but what he doesn't understand is that the world isn't ready for coming of a complete cyborg. The world isn't ready for the return of Adam and Eve. I've tried to talk him out of it; I even offered a company merger, which would be a real benefit on our part, but Quest declined. The populace still hasn't truly accepted technology as it is, let alone human enhancement. The church, the government, and other radicals would have a field day with it all. That's why we have to stop him."  
  
"Did you ever think you might be wrong? Maybe knowing that you don't have to die until you're ready would be appealing to the public."  
  
"Trusting people to make the right decision is a foolish move. If the second coming of Adam and Eve should happen, we'll be in over our heads a one bloody catastrophic mess." 


	7. Act 6: Big Time Sensuality

Deformare  
  
Act 6: Big Time Sensuality  
  
I can sense it  
  
Something important  
  
Is about to happen  
  
It's coming up.  
  
What the hell was she doing? What was it about that Goddamn building that she needed to get inside of it so bad? Why, because there was maybe, just maybe, something inside of it that would lead her to her past? Since when did she care about who or what she was before she became Eve? And yet there she was standing outside of it like an asshole. Why? Because she saw some man and it triggered something that could be just a glitch?  
  
A glitch.  
  
Yeah, that's all it was, a glitch.  
  
'You're afraid.'  
  
Afraid wasn't something that was ever associated with her. What did she have to fear anyway? Death? She'd beaten the reaper once she could do it again.  
  
'You're afraid of what you might find.'  
  
The truth is hardly ever pleasing.  
  
'You're afraid that you might find that you never really existed.'  
  
Everyone has existed since the beginning of all things, the old shell withers and falls into oblivion and the soul travels into the new. One might be afraid that the old body never existed, but knowing that the present one does, there is nothing to fear in the end.  
  
'And yet you are still afraid.'  
  
That is the human condition.  
  
'But are you human?"  
  
That's what I'm going to find out.  
  
*  
  
It had been a long day, but when wasn't it these days? Usually he was either deliberating with some whacked out world leader, signing his life away on legal documents, flying to other countries to make nice, or locked up in some other situation he couldn't escape. All of those things usually meant a really long day, but today he hadn't dealt with any of that, but yet it was still long. But a different kind of long, today was more emotionally taxing than physically or intellectually like he was used to, and that weighed heavier on him than anything else. Hadji Singh was tired all right.  
  
And now this. He couldn't really express his dislike of the whole project, not with the way Jonny felt about it. He was so proud of himself, so proud of his coming accomplishment, if he ever told him how he really felt it would crush him, and he couldn't bring himself to do that. What kind of brother would he be if he did? But he just couldn't shake the horrid feeling it gave him when Jonathan began explaining it to him. It seemed..wrong. Yes, he believed that people return to the earthly plane if their samsara hadn't ended, but at the same time, he believed that it was God's duty to determine it all, not man's.  
  
It was way after business hours in the Quest Enterprises New York branch building which was obvious in the lack of human movement in the offices and other normal operating levels of the enormous construct, but they were moving much lower than that. Hadji had followed Jonny down the vacant hallways to a specially guarded elevator that descended to levels below ground. All the while his brother spoke to him like it was a normal, everyday kind of thing to do. Neither one of them had lead lives that could be considered normal, but for him to act so casual about what was going on under their feet just didn't seem right.  
  
"So when is the wedding again?"  
  
"Must I remind you again, my friend? It is in January."  
  
"Shit, that's right. I can't seem to remember much these days. I'll have to be sure to book my flight soon, it's only a couple months from now."  
  
"It is."  
  
"Are you nervous?" that lopsided grin spread over his lips. Hadji couldn't help but smile at it though.  
  
"No."  
  
Jon flashed him a look that urged a more truthful answer.  
  
"OK, a bit," he laughed to which Jonny joined.  
  
The elevator chimed to signal they'd reached their destination and both men grew serious as the doors slid open. They were meet by another pair of guards on the other side of the door, but they stepped aside at the sight of their boss, much to Hadji's relief. Beyond them laid a dark room illuminated only by the blue screens of the numerous computers filling the space and the large white column in the far back and center. People walked back and forth, white lab coats trailing them as they exchanged information and signed off on this or that. The resources and people manning this project must of cost a fortune, but when Jonny had a dream that he wanted to fulfill, none of that mattered.  
  
Hadji followed his brother out of the lift and down the one long, thin aisle in the center of the room that split the area in half. At the sight of Jon several of the people working scurried over to him, clip boards in hand and tried, somewhat frantic expressions on their faces.  
  
"Mr. Quest, I need you to sign this document."  
  
"Mr. Quest, the bio readings are coming back nominal, should we proceed with the muscle construction phase?"  
  
"Mr. Quest, the subject's brain wave activity is still normal, but if we plan to import we'll need to do it very soon. Life support will only last for so long."  
  
"Mr. Quest, we still haven't figured out how to download the subject's ghost without the chance of loosing it. Do you have any suggestions?"  
  
"Mr. Quest-"  
  
How in the hell did he deal with that? So many questions at once and no one gave him a second to answer them. But then again, the moment he stepped out of his office during normal government functioning hours, he was swamped as well. Hadji smiled to himself, how the hell did he deal with it either?  
  
"Excuse me, but I'll answer your questions in a moment. Right now I have a product I must pitch to a future investor," Jon turned to his brother, "Right this way Dr. Singh."  
  
*  
  
She was on a rooftop again. Her hair whipped up by the breeze, the exhilarating feel of her blood pumping through her veins as the thought of the danger she was in filled her mind. There wasn't a drug on this planet that could match the emotion she was feeling right then.  
  
Eve ran a check through her mind, tracing the data she'd collected on the security map she'd dug up during her search. Two more seconds and the cameras up here would be out of range to see her slip in.  
  
One Mississippi.  
  
Two Mississippi.  
  
Now. She tore at the latch and flipped open the trap door below her.  
  
*  
  
"Hadji, I would like you to meet Adam," the way he said it was strange; it reminded him of a proud father introducing his son to someone important. It didn't sound right.  
  
The Sultan shifted his eyes toward Jonathan, taking in his countenance as he looked up at his growing masterpiece with admiration. They stood before the large white tube at the back of the room, staring up at what floated inside of it. One with joy, the other with suppressed horror. The dead, lifeless expression on the subject's face reminded Hadji of a corpse, but the mechanical pieces that hung out of his limbs and the large open slot on the back of his head suggested something else, something worse than a dead body.  
  
Frankenstein's monster, it was a modern fuckin' day Frankenstein's monster.  
  
"He's far from completed, but we should have him alive and well before your wedding."  
  
He? That thing wasn't a he it wasn't even human.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Hadji stammered for a moment, he was too busy with what was running through his mind to really come up with answers that wouldn't be offending.  
  
"H-how did you come up with Adam's appearance?"  
  
"We based his superficial design on the original."  
  
"Original?"  
  
"The man that donated his body to science I mean. We just constructed his appearance on that of the human subject."  
  
"Human subject? If this thing isn't a human, then what would you call it?" he was trying his hardest to keep his real feelings from slipping out.  
  
"Well, as sci fi as this sounds, you'd have to call him a cyborg, considering there's still a piece of him that's from the original," he didn't catch the disgust in his brother's words.  
  
"Sir!" a young woman behind them shrieked as she stood up from her computer, pushing her chair out with the back of her legs violently. She tore her headset from her ears and let it fall down around her neck as her serious expression deepened.  
  
"What is it Myra?" Jonny asked, caught off guard by the woman's sudden explosion.  
  
"The security systems just alerted me of a breach on the fourth floor!"  
  
"Did you check to see what it was?" his voice was even and casual.  
  
"I would have if the entire interface hadn't crashed a few seconds afterward," she answered, both of her hands down on the desk in front of her and her brows pulled down into a tight furrow.  
  
"Jesus Christ. Listen, everyone, I want all project information saved and shut down immediately. There's no telling who, or what is in the building, so none of you move from this area until security comes and moves you to a safer location."  
  
"Jonny.." Hadji began but was cut off by his brother who simply lifted a hand and brought a cell phone to his ear.  
  
"Mr. Cox.. Yes I just got wind of the breach.. No, I want you to bring in the big guns, if they're smart enough to crash the security interface then they're not here to play around," he flipped his phone closed.  
  
"Any idea as to who it could be?"  
  
"Yeah, I've got a good idea of who it is. The woman who's come back from the dead to haunt me." 


	8. Act 7: Cover Me

Deformare  
  
Act 7: Cover Me  
  
I'm going hunting for mysteries  
  
Cover me  
  
I'm going to prove the impossible really exists  
  
This is really dangerous  
  
Cover me  
  
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Some professional she was, tripping an alarm like that so easily. If she hadn't of done it she would be fine, but since they now knew she was in the building the only thing she could do was crash the system. At least that way it would be harder to find her but on the same token they'd know she wasn't just the Hamburglar looking for his Goddamn happy meal.  
  
Good job Eve, real good job.  
  
Now what? She couldn't just keep heading down they'd be waiting for her there. She'd by passed 145 floors before she tripped that alarm, and now her whole plan was shot, she'd never be able to get to the lower levels now. Back to the top it was, then. Back out of this place, fuck, her one shot and she blew it because of one fuckin' miscalculation. There was no way she'd be able to make this attempt again any time soon, and if the Doc got wind of it shit was going to hit the fan. So back to the top it was.. But what was at the top that was worthwhile other than escape?  
  
Her brain swept over the information stored in her memory.  
  
The executive offices, the president's office, yeah, if she couldn't go to the main source the head honcho's office would be the next best thing. She smirked. Well, she'd brought the shit storm down on herself; it was time to deal with it.  
  
*  
  
It had to be her. He just knew it, somewhere deep down inside of himself he just knew she was the one in the building. He couldn't explain it, call it intuition if you must, but something in his gut said it was her, it was Jessie, and he learned along time ago that you shouldn't ignore your gut feelings.  
  
He turned his head to meet a more than disturbed Hadji. Couldn't Jon see what he was bringing down upon himself? He was asking to get killed just when he found himself free of that burden. Was it so hard to live without that fear? Or did he need it? Did he get off on the fact that people wanted him dead? Yes, Hadji was more than just disturbed.  
  
The scientists and other folks who were working so diligently before were now in a state of chaos. Everyone was either frantically saving information and shutting down computers, or trying desperately to cover up the physical evidence of the Adam project at maddening speed.  
  
Jonathan ran.  
  
"Jonny, don't! You'll get yourself killed!"  
  
His brother stopped for a moment and pivoted his head to his right shoulder.  
  
"I gotta know, Hadj. I gotta know if it's her or not."  
  
"Jessie is dead, Jonny! Pain and simple! You cannot continue entertaining the thought that she might still be out there!" his voice was horse and shrill against the panic of the room around him.  
  
But he got no response in return, no words anyway; his answer was clear in the sight of the young executive's back as he resumed his run.  
  
*  
  
The corridors were dark; the only light came from the emergency lights above her, giving the stretch of office space before her a kind of creepy feel. She loved that feeling; it was like she was James Bond or something.. If he were a cyborg.. And had a set of tits. She had her pistol stationed in her hands, pointing downward and set evenly between her knees as she crept along the plush carpeting. The elevator was only a good yard a head of her, but there was no telling what was laying in wait.  
  
There was a service elevator at the other end of the hall, but she was sure the security forces would be using it to get to her position. The stairs would be guarded as well.  
  
Hmm.  
  
They were trying to trap her, like any hunter would do to its prey. She'd take the main elevator. Officers would more than likely be in it, but she could easily take them down and then use it as a ride to the top, well, if she didn't fuck up again anyway.  
  
Eve pressed herself against the wall beside the elevator's steely doors and leaned forward to hit the up button. She pulled her gun up so that her hands were chest level and set between her shoulders. No guards on the floor yet, that was a good sign. The lift chimed, signaling that the doors would be opening very soon. If anyone was in there they'd be expecting her to be standing in the entryway, if they were smart they'd know she was better than that and charge out to detain her in a special maneuver.  
  
Nothing.  
  
She threw her self to her right, quickly pivoting her body so that she would be facing the open doors, gun out stretched and ready to fire.  
  
The elevator was empty.  
  
'They're going to try and trap me on the upper floors. I guess they figure I'll have no way out if I'm at the top,' she thought inwardly.  
  
"Idiots," Eve mumbled aloud before she stepped into the lift.  
  
*  
  
"Mr. Quest, I must urge you not to follow pursuit. Your safety is our first priority, I can't allow you to-"  
  
"Bullshit!" Jon spat, cutting off his security advisor before he had a chance to finish. "Like hell I'm going to stay here while you Yahoos go after this person! This is my company, I'll do how I damn well please."  
  
Hadji took hold of his brother's arm, "you are being irrational, Jonathan. Listen to this man, find somewhere safe and keep yourself away from this mess."  
  
"You of all people should know me better than that, Hadj. I can't just sit back and have this problem handled by someone else."  
  
He was right. He did know Jonny better than that. It was a miracle the man stayed alive this long with as reckless as he was. In fact Hadji was pretty sure that everyone took bets on how old Jonny would be before he got himself killed in one of his adventures he had no business going off on. But this time it was different. Corporate wars were more dangerous than any safari or jungle cruise. Corporates would tear you apart in every aspect before they killed you physically.  
  
"Fine," Hadji moved past his brother, "if you are so hell bent on finding her, then I am going with you."  
  
*  
  
You know, there's this funny little trick. If you hold the door close button down until you reach your floor it skips everyone one that's hit the button to get onto the elevator you're on, unless someone over rides it.  
  
The elevator came to a sudden stop, jerking violently enough to cause the expensive overhead light to flicker for a short moment. Damn, and just one floor before her destination.  
  
'I guess it's finally party time.'  
  
The doors slid open with a sharp hiss, the sound of heavy boots moving over the carpeting outside of the lift and the clack of guns being armed and ready to fire filling the air. But when the heavily armed and armored guards looked into the elevator, they found no one inside.  
  
"What the fuck?" one of them growled, obviously more than perturbed with the fact that who they'd been chasing was nowhere in sight.  
  
"Where the hell is this guy?" another asked as he moved into the small space.  
  
She had wedged herself up in the roof, using her hands and feet to keep her place as she gripped the corners with her limbs. All they had to do was look up if they wanted to find her, but she wouldn't give them that. With a jerk, she threw her arms to her left, gripping the small amount of metal ledge that framed the doors at the roof, her body swinging down and over. In that one, grotesquely beautiful motion her legs came down, slamming into the chest of the guard in the entryway. To their credit, the others reacted rather quickly, but motions granted from a normal human body could never match that of someone who had cybernetic enhancements, let alone someone with entirely cybernetic body. The man she hit flew backward, taking out two other guards behind him. Those still standing fired, but reactionary shots were never well aimed, much to Eve's luck. In her same motion she summer salted to the floor, landing with a heavy thud on her feet. With gritted teeth she threw her left hand out from her body, the heel of her hand connecting with the nose of the operative at her side, sending him backward in a hail of blood. She kicked outward with her right leg, knocking the last guard's gun from his hands before she brought her left leg around and connected it with his neck.  
  
All five were down and out for the count.  
  
Scoffing, Eve returned to the elevator. It wouldn't be going anywhere, not after those fools blooding up the carpet just three feet past her over rid it. She smiled; this really was turning into some real life James Bond shit.  
  
The redhead stood under the trap door of the lift, knowing full well that she didn't have much time left, she'd have to climb up the cable to the next floor if she wanted the information that lied in the president's office. Her other two choices were out of question at this point. Grunting, she kicked her leg up, knocking the trap door open hard when her booted foot connected with it. She used the thick oak railing on the inside of the lift as a stepladder before she hoisted herself upward with her arms.  
  
007.  
  
*  
  
She hated coming to his office, it always had that heavy, stale cigar smell about it. You'd think it wouldn't bother her since her own lungs were riddled with years of cigarette smoking, but it did. It was too.. Dense.. A smell for her, it was almost like being locked in a gas chamber. But obviously the old man didn't give a shit about how anyone else felt about it. In fact the fat bastard was smoking a cigar right then. Puffing away. The light from the large brass lamp on his desk illuminating the swirling smoke in the room.  
  
She shifted her stance and cleared her throat.  
  
The old man fell back in his large black leather chair, resting the hand that held his cigar on the top of his large cheery wood desk. With his other hand he attempted to make more room for his fat neck my pulling at his collar, but all it did was snap the material back a bit tighter. His dark green tie was a bit too tight around his neck, much like the rest of his olive uniform, which seemed to squeeze his body into a sausage shape.  
  
The young woman darted her eyes around the room for a moment. The silence was obviously a tactic to make her nervous. It wasn't working, what was making her nervous was the fact that she could see nothing in the room, save for the fat man and his desk.  
  
"There have been reports, Major Huxley, that project Lilith has gone missing. Is this true?" his gruff voice boomed in the seemingly empty room.  
  
"I wouldn't say it's gone missing, sir, but project Lilith has been offline for several hours," that English accent made it feel like it wasn't a bad situation.  
  
"And why would you think it hasn't gone MIA?"  
  
"Because I know her better than that. She has a tendency to close off her cyber brain when she wants to be alone. I don't know about you sir, but if I wanted to keep my thoughts to myself, I'd do the same thing," her heels were starting to make her feet hurt.  
  
"Her? If you were her? Don't make such an association with something that isn't human."  
  
"My apologies, General."  
  
She hated him. How the hell could he feel that way about her? Of course she was human, she was as human as either one of them. She had feelings, she had goals; she enjoyed the feel of the spring sun on her skin just like anyone else did. Who the fuck was he to classify her as something other than a human being? Fuck him; fuck Americans and their righteous bullshit.  
  
"In any case, does anyone have an idea where it may be?" he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wood in front of him.  
  
"One of my operatives may, sir."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Bannon," she wanted to get out of there already; his cigar was starting to make her sick.  
  
The fat man leaned back again, "is that so? He won't talk will he? Hmm, he probably feels like that machine is still his daughter."  
  
"That may be."  
  
Her superior snubbed out his cigar, "keep a close eye on him."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
*  
  
Climbing up ropes was the stupidest thing ever. It wasn't like she couldn't do it, it just seemed like there should be a bunch of screaming junior high kids below her making jokes or something during phys ed. But there she was, her thin body snaked around a thick black cable like some sort of human spider, her flashlight firmly clamped between her teeth as she hung just in front of the set of doors to the top floor. She'd have to open it manually, meaning she had to use her legs to grip the rope while she used both hands to pry the doors open. Oh, this was going to be interesting.  
  
Eve reached out with both hands, careful to keep her legs tightly wrapped around the rope as support. She ventured to open the doors with normal strength, but they proved to be stronger than that. So she pushed again, this time with the aid of her advanced muscles, separating the doors easily. But Eve only opened them so far. She used the small crack to peek through, not enough to be seen, but enough to see out, to see if anyone was on the other side waiting for her.  
  
No one.  
  
Perfect.  
  
The redhead threw the doors open and used her arms to pull herself up onto the floor, flashlight still clenched in her teeth. She pulled her pistol out again as she slinked down the hallway, her head moving from one side to the other, looking, and being as quiet as possible. Quest's office was just at the end of the hallway, marked by a huge dark oak door with large gold letters that spelled out: "Jonathan Quest, President, Quest Enterprises Inc."  
  
'How cocky,' she thought. 'The Doc doesn't even have something like that, and she's as vain as they fuckin' get.'  
  
Eve moved to turn the doorknob, which, surprisingly, wasn't locked. It opened with a soft click. The man must be very trusting, or he was in too much of a hurry when he left to remember to lock the door. The information that was inside that room, or rather, the possible amount of information in that room was valuable, only a fool would leave it for any eyes to see. But there wasn't any time to think or comment on that fact. Swiftly she stepped into the room, closing the door and locking it behind her.  
  
Jonathan's office was, not surprisingly, very large. At the back of the room hovered two, gigantic panes of glass which took up the entire back wall. In front of that stood a large, black granite desk in which before it sat three expensive black leather chairs which matched his much larger one behind the desk. To the left of his desk were several neatly arranged computer terminals, all in cased in black steel shelves. To the right, starting from one wall and invading the next, were a series of bookcases, all full of books, folders, and other things of importance, aged paper giving the room that smell that only libraries have.  
  
The computers were her targets, and Eve wasted no time in starting up the few that were shut down. All she needed to do was download what was on them, sort through it later, and find out just what in the hell Quest had that the Doc didn't want her to see. All she needed was to figure out why that man was so fuckin' familiar. To find out if what she saw was the part of her she lost somewhere, the part of her that was just a normal woman. Human.  
  
From her neck, she pulled a long black wire, and scrambled to plug it into one of the USB ports. Click. She was in. Begin download.  
  
Files raced through her mind, order purchases, payouts, prosthetic limb research and development, attempted and failed projects, Adam.  
  
Adam? What the hell was this? Top secrete development of a cyber body? No, not just a body, there was more to it.. She stopped her probing and continued downloading the information in front of her; she could hear them outside the door. They'd bust in any second now. All she needed was two more seconds and she was out of there like a bat outta hell.  
  
One Mississippi.  
  
Two Mississippi.  
  
Download complete.  
  
She tore the wire from the back of the computer and lifted her gun to the glass window behind her. Without a thought she fired, causing the glass to shatter and rain down on her like millions of lethal diamonds. From her belt she hooked one end of a long black rope to the window's ledge, not taking the large shards still in the window frame into consideration when time would come for her to jump over the edge.  
  
The door behind her flew open.  
  
"Freeze!!" She could here a powerful and maddened voice behind her bark.  
  
'Give me a fuckin' break,' she stifled herself from rolling her eyes.  
  
"Don't move," that voice.  
  
She froze. That voice, it was the boy, the man in her visions from somewhere she no longer belonged to. He was behind her, boring his eyes into her back. Of all the wrong times for him to be here! She needed to escape, but the fact that he was there made that task so much harder.  
  
"Please, I need to know.. who are you?" he pleaded from the other side of her back.  
  
Eve turned on her heels, turning around to face him, her eyes hidden behind a thick black visor.  
  
Who was she anyway?  
  
She pulled the mask over her eyes up and rested it on the top of her head. Red hair ruffed and pushed away from her face in wild, inconsistent patterns. But it was the eyes that did it. Hadji couldn't believe what he was seeing. Jonny was fuckin' right about her. There wasn't anyway that, that woman was anyone other than Jessie.  
  
"You know better than I do," she said, and fell form the window's ledge. 


	9. Act 8: Isobel

Deformare  
  
Act 8: Isobel  
  
My name Isobel  
  
Married to myself  
  
My love Isobel  
  
Living by herself  
  
It was too early for this shit. It had taken him God knows how long to fall asleep last night and just when he was going to bask in the fact that today was his day off and he could sleep in, someone nearly banged his door down at seven o'clock in the fuckin' morning. And not just somebody, his partner, his partner with a more than upset air about her which could only mean that she had either gotten herself in trouble with the Doc and she needed him to bail her out or some other shit was going down. Either way, it really was too early for this bullshit.  
  
He glared at her from one side of the living room, his arms crossed over his chest and his body leaning on the edge of a long brown wood table stationed against the far wall. He watched her pace back and forth across the living area, her arms down at her sides and hands pulled into tight fists. Her face was scrunched, he knew she was thinking; Jessie made that face when she was thinking of something she didn't want to address.  
  
His scowl deepened every time she crossed the room. If there was something she needed to say she needed to just spit it out for Christ's sake. He didn't get out of bed to watch her walk back and forth across his apartment, that's for fuckin' sure.  
  
"Eve.what the hell are you doing here?" he growled, God he was fuckin' tired.  
  
The young woman finally stopped pacing, stopping dead in her tracks to stare at him, her face covered by an unreadable expression.  
  
What did she come here for?  
  
"Race.who is Jonathan Quest?"  
  
Wow, all that thinking and that was the best she could come up with?  
  
The older man looked away from her, turning his attention to one of the windows to his right.  
  
"How the hell should I know?" he lied.  
  
"Don't bullshit me Bannon. You know him don't you?"  
  
"Never met the guy."  
  
"Liar!" Eve retorted.  
  
Race snapped his head back around to face her, his eyes cold and hard. She'd found something out. He knew it, that girl didn't just disappear for a number of hours because she wanted 'alone time'. She went and dug her nose into something she shouldn't have, and now she was paying the price. He could tell in the way she bit her bottom lip she was fighting back something, whether it be tears or an out right curse.  
  
She took his lack of reply as confirmation. So now the story deepens, Race knows Quest, Quest knows her.. but not her, the other her that died along time ago, the other her that lives as a ghost, haunting her conscious being. And the Doc.. she created her body.. and now the boy in her visions is creating one as well. They had to be in it together, this was more than just a coincidence, and Race was their wingman, keeping her at bay while they pulled off their plan. Adam and Eve, hah, how fuckin' original. What, are they going to try the beginning of life all over again, except this time with robots?  
  
Eve's body tensed as she glared over at the man she thought was on her side.  
  
"I get it now.. You, the Doc, Quest, you're all in it together aren't you?"  
  
Race raised his eyebrows, "what? What the hell do you mean by that?"  
  
"I knew there was something more to this case than what it seemed, but this I never expected. Elizabeth whipped up this body, stuck my brain in it and told me I was the next step in humanity, and Quest is doing the same thing. What are you fucks trying to do here?! Play with people like you're fucking God?!"  
  
Bannon stepped forward, uncrossing his arms and leaning toward her.  
  
"You went to Quest Enterprises didn't you? You went against orders, Eve!" He was beginning to fume.  
  
"Yeah, I did, and I know why I was knocked off the case, you all didn't want me to find out what you're trying to pull!"  
  
"That's not even close to the truth! There's good reason why you were scratched, so you wouldn't jump to these ridiculous conclusions!"  
  
It was turning into an intense shouting match; one they both knew was turning ugly.  
  
"I know about Adam, Race. I downloaded all the data Quest has on the project, I know that I'm not the only full cyborg in this world, and I know that Jonathan and I knew one another before I turned into this monster!"  
  
He froze.  
  
She stood her ground.  
  
"You're not a monster.."  
  
"Like fuckin' hell I'm not! I don't even know if I'm really human. I don't know if what I do or how I think is because I'm a machine or because I'm just like you. And no one can answer that. I'd like to kill who ever allowed this to happen to me, I want that person to know what kind of hell he's put me in!"  
  
"I did it to save you Jessie!!"  
  
She froze.  
  
He realized what he'd just said.  
  
"Jessie.." She whispered it; afraid that if she said it too loud it would disappear. "My name.. that's my name."  
  
Race just stood there, mouth agape, his heart pounding in his ears. He fucked up.. Not only had she found out about the other one, now she knew her name, she had two pieces of her past and it would only be a matter of time fore she figured out the rest. If Dr. Huxley found out..Jesus, he hoped that woman was what she fronted.  
  
"No.. no, it's not your name," he sputtered, trying to correct the mistake he'd made.  
  
Eve nodded, revelation in her eyes, as she back stepped away from him. She had her path, now it was time to return to the past.  
  
* Hadji sat on the other side of the room, staring over at his brother who sat with his head in his hands, his mind riddled with the night's events. He swallowed hard, he usually had an explanation for things like this, but for the first time, the Sultan was at a lose.  
  
That woman, though she resembled his fallen friend in more ways than one, couldn't possibly be.. There just wasn't any logical way that she could still be.. God he couldn't even bring himself to think of the weight that such simple words held. He now knew the pain of what was tearing at his adoptive brother. Hadji sighed heavily, first upon his arrival he was slammed into the thought of artificial life, and then faced the onslaught of the reappearance of someone whom he loved and lost. He hadn't of come to see that damn robot..  
  
Singh's head shot up; his eyes wide with the thought that passed through his mind.  
  
"Jonny.. I think I have an idea of what has happened here."  
  
*  
  
I found that I existed when I feared I wouldn't.  
  
Because the body I possess now is evidence of the past; I pushed that fear away and found comfort.  
  
Comfort in that I was apart of this world.  
  
Because now I know..  
  
Because now it depends on whether you are remembered..  
  
If you aren't remembered, then you never existed. . . . . . . . . And I am remembered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I exist. . . . . . . And I am no longer alone. 


	10. Act 9: Army of Me

Deformare  
  
Act 9: Army of Me  
  
You're on your own now  
  
We won't save you  
  
Your rescue-squad  
  
Is to exhausted  
  
It was all falling apart. After everything they'd done to keep this from happening, it did anyway. He should have known better, should have been more careful, shouldn't of let her have as much freedom as she did. God.. maybe he shouldn't have brought her into this mess to begin with. What she said, that she felt like some kind of monster, so simple yet as sharp as a knife. They'd cut him deep, much deeper than anything before in his life. But he couldn't just let her die that day. He couldn't just let his little girl go, not when she was given the chance to live again. Was he wrong for trying to save her?  
  
The clack of Elizabeth's heels on the tile flooring was a like a harpoon reeling him back into reality, reeling him away from his thoughts. He shifted in the over sized chair he sat in, the leather creaking with his every movement. The younger woman swept passed him, the scent of jasmine filling his nose when she'd passed. She smelled good, but the thoughts that turned over in his mind made it sour. There was something in the way she swung her hips when she walked that made him suddenly hate her. This was all her fault really, why the hell was he placing the blame on himself? If that woman hadn't of entered the room and propositioned him, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't be waist deep in bullshit. But then he wouldn't have Jessie.. But she wasn't Jessie; the girl had said it herself. She was Eve, someone completely different yet the same.  
  
"So, Roger," she started as she lowered herself into her chair, "what is it you need to speak to me about?" her tone was sweet and calculated.  
  
"It's.. about Eve.."  
  
*  
  
If he kept doing that he was going to wear a hole into the ground, Hadji couldn't help but think as he watched the young man before him pace around the room. He hadn't liked his suggestion, of how that woman could be Jessie. He didn't know if it was because of the situation or just the sheer fact that he didn't want to think that someone had out done him already. But there he was, still pacing, his borrow pulled into a tight furrow; biting down on the nail of his thumb. Everything had suddenly become very complicated, and as much as the Sultan wanted to bail out of it and go home, it would be wrong of him. So he just sighed. He'd been sighing a lot lately.  
  
"There's just no way," Jonny stated as he continued to pace, continued to bite on his thumbnail.  
  
"Really? If I am correct, you are only a few months away from achieving such a goal as well. You are not the only company dealing with cybernetic enhancement, Jonny," Hadji countered him.  
  
"I know that, Hadj. But we're still light years ahead of our competition," Quest replied, "So she couldn't be.."  
  
"A cyborg? Jonny.. if you can not even bring yourself to say such a word when dealing with a loved one, then how are you going to convince others to be able to do so?"  
  
He stopped pacing for a moment. Was his brother just questioning his work? When in the hell did it turn into that? This was about Jessie, not about Quest Enterprises' projects. He shot Hadji a look that would have made the devil cringe, but he didn't say anything in refute, just the look, that's all.  
  
"Maybe some of my competitors are further ahead then I thought and just put up a smoke screen to keep everyone else off of their tail."  
  
"Perhaps.." He sighed again, this time at the way his brother avoided the question he posed. There was no way he was going to get him to see what he was doing.  
  
"Hadj, I'm going to need your help on this one."  
  
*  
  
Lord Jesus Christ, who willest that no man should perish, and to whom petition is never made without the hope of mercy, for Thou saidst with Thine own holy and blessed lips: "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, shall be done unto you"; I beg of Thee, O Lord, for Thy holy Name's sake, to grant me at the hour of my death full consciousness and the power of speech, sincere contrition for my sins, true faith, firm hope and perfect charity, that I may be able to say unto Thee with a clean heart: Thou has redeemed me, O God of truth, who art blessed for ever and ever.  
  
Amen.  
  
*  
  
Jessie. It was a nice name. Sort of feminine and sweet.. but did it fit her? Jessica, that was where the name Jessie came from, she was sure of it, she.. remembered it, maybe, she wasn't sure about that. But it wasn't her name really; she wasn't Jessie anymore. The young woman she was then was not who is now. Jessie was dead, and only Eve remained. That's what her brain told her. But.. wasn't it Jessie's brain? This body was Eve's but her brain was Jessie's, she knew that as a scientific fact. Eve wasn't a woman of science, Eve's personality anyway, but she had a knack for it. That must have been Jessie, deep somewhere in her psyche. There but not quite, the ghost that haunted where she'd been.  
  
'I'm on my own now,' she thought to herself. The Doc would know and Race. The only life she had known, really known, that is, was over. She had to make a new one, make a new identity for herself. Jessie was the past she couldn't remember, and Eve was the life she had to leave.  
  
She smiled. But then again she never really ever was Eve. Eve had no social security number, no debt, no assets.. nothing that connected her to this world. Eve didn't, technically, exist. But she did.  
  
And yet she was now on her own.  
  
And it was time she found her humanity.  
  
And it began with finding the other when he is completed.  
  
The key was finding Adam.  
  
And finding the Garden of Eden for herself.  
  
Rest in Peace sweet Jessie.  
  
Good-bye Eve.  
  
Hello, nice to meet you. Good to see you. What was your name again?  
  
*  
  
A/N: Hey guys, sorry it took so long for this one to come out and for its shortness. I just spent about a month back home visiting my parents. Look for another update soon. Well, hopefully soon.  
  
Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you all are definitely motivation to write. 


	11. Act 10: One Day

Deformare  
  
Act 10: One Day  
  
One day, one day  
  
You will blossom  
  
One day, one day  
  
When you're ready.  
  
Adam had been sped up. No more lollygagging and thinking of lofty ideas on how to get the bastard to work. It was crunch time. Time to fully realize his dream. Time to give his creation life. And because of this speedy procedure, he'd only get one chance to make it all work. There was no margin for error. One fuck up and all this time, all his resources, all his dreams would go spiraling into oblivion. Adam would work, even if he had to sell his soul to do it.  
  
"Sir?" the long legged brunette beside him spun in her rolling chair to face him.  
  
"Yes, Dr. Rosencrantz?"  
  
"Project Adam's superficial design has been completed. We are awaiting your approval to insert his ghost."  
  
He was quiet for a moment. "Proceed."  
  
"Yes sir, information is being sent to the Sadducees to begin ghost insertion."  
  
They all sat there, the room silent. Never once had that room ever been so quiet. There was always some sort of noise, someone typing, papers being printed out, the heavy hum of multiple computer terminals, someone speaking in a low tone.... but now, the only sound that filled their ears as their breath caught in their chests was the sound of Adam's head case closing around his brain that was both electronic and human.  
  
He opened his eyes.  
  
"Happy birthday.... Adam."  
  
His soul had been bought.  
  
She had to keep in accordance with her demeanor; that calm, cool exterior. The delicate shell she'd created for herself. She'd sooner die and rot in hell before she let the Fat Man break what she worked so desperately to erect around herself.  
  
"Your assumption was wrong, Major Huxley."  
  
She shifted in her ill-fitting, standard issue heels. Sore comfort for feet used to the fine design of Prada. He was reassuring her that her ass was grass should the situation get anymore fucked up than it already was. He was also reassuring her that he wasn't going to lift one plump finger to help her out of it either. He was going to let her take the blame for this problem, however, should things go right he'd take the credit. That's the job of the lackey, really.  
  
"It has gone missing."  
  
An eggshell is Fragile from one angle, unbreakable from another. Just like the human body in all honesty. Elizabeth suddenly wondered if that was the way Eve felt about it.  
  
Just some poor girl trapped inside of a shell she cannot find her way out of. Like a chick furiously struggling to blossom and exist in this world. That is humanity, the long-suffering desire to exist and be recognized. To be appreciated and accepted.  
  
Huxely's eyes snapped up to meet those of her superior, a move a bit too bold for the moment, and for whom she was dealing with. But she didn't care; she suddenly realized what it was that Eve was looking for, what everyone is looking for.  
  
"What course of action do you plan to pursue?"  
  
That goddamn cigar....  
  
"General, I assure you, I have everything under control. Just leave it to me, sir. I have my way of dealing with things."  
  
"Major," he leaned his round body forward, the leather of his chair groaning under his weight as he did so, his features twisted by the mixture of light and darkness, "I will remind you to watch what you say. You must also realize, should you fuck this up...."  
  
"I know my punishment, sir, I need not be reminded."  
  
"Fuckin' British...."  
  
It was the hum of the fluorescent light overhead and the broken doll in his hand that told him he was alive; alive, in the sense that he was conscious and others drifted in and out of that consciousness who recognized him. He felt....strange. Out of place really. He could feel, but it was in a third person sense. Vicarious almost.  
  
He wondered if this was how she felt when she was born. When she became apart of the world again. The woman who was both metal and flesh; just as he. The woman who haunted him in the deep recesses of his mind. The frail creature he found when his soul was lost in the vast sea of information he was cast into before he came aboard the vessel he was trapped in now.  
  
The Eve to his Adam.  
  
She'd come for him. He knew this; she'd come before and discovered him before he was born. It was only a matter of time now. He'd sit here; humor those that made him what he is, and wait for the woman who is a Godless creation like him self. He'd sit here and wait to unfold the path that lay ahead of them.  
  
He'd wait for his Eve.  
  
He'd wait for the woman who knew that this world was not ready for them.  
  
Elizabeth was flipping open her pack of cigarettes before she'd finished smoking the one currently resting on her lip. How many was that today? Fuck, since she'd left the General's office, really? The cardboard pack had been full when she'd pulled them out of her top drawer, now there were two.  
  
She pushed a few butts around in her crystal ashtray to make room for another of its kin. Each filter was stained with traces of her lipstick, arranged in a strange mish mash of varying amounts. The blonde was sure she'd need to reapply soon; she'd wasted all her paint on the buds resting before her.  
  
Elizabeth was lighting the next one when her door opened after a curt knock. She looked up and suddenly realized that the room was covered in a slight haze....just like the fat man, and she suddenly hated herself.  
  
"Race," her voice was hoarse from smoking, "I'm glad you could get here so quickly."  
  
He didn't say anything in return; he just took a seat in front of her. Huxley would have been offended if it weren't for the bags beneath his eyes and the deepening of the wrinkles in his brow and mouth.  
  
Roger was fighting his own demons right now.  
  
"What.... Do you want, Elizabeth?" his voice was detached.  
  
"Things have changed Roger, we have too many men on the field right now and we can't get caught with the penalty." She heard him snort at her analogy. Asshole.  
  
"So what's the plan?"  
  
"We need to start moving now, get anyone who could possibly be accused on our side scratched from this assignment," she was standing at her window now, back to him and arms crossed firmly over her chest. "In other words, the only man I want left in all of this is you."  
  
"What?!" his voice wasn't detached anymore.  
  
She sighed, "you're personally involved in this, Bannon, you're stuck. I'd rather you not be, but that wasn't my choice to make. Besides, there's....something....much deeper, than what's on the surface here."  
  
She could feel his eyes on her back, but it was the only part of her that could take the brunt of such an onslaught.  
  
"This isn't your typical scientific research company, Roger, I'm sure you know that by now. I can't tell you everything at this moment, but when all this is cleared up, you'll be notified, and released from duty with us."  
  
"Duty?" the way he slathered that word with disdain almost made her cringe.  
  
"Yes. But as I said, you'll be told AFTER, this fiasco is taken care of," she took a long drag from her cigarette, she'd forgotten about it smoldering in her fingers. "Eve must be retrieved. Intelligence has just released a statement saying Adam has woken, and it's only a matter of time before she'll try to make contact with him again. It is also only a matter of time before she makes contact with Jonathan again."  
  
"Yeah? And how the hell do you plan on stopping her? Elizabeth, honestly, you only controlled her before because she let you, so how do you fuckin' plan on keeping her from doing what she wants?" his tone was cold and biting.  
  
Her back was quiet for a moment.  
  
"At any light you look at the situation we're in Barney. So I went for the most logical solution. I'm calling in the big guns."  
  
"Big guns? What are you talking about?"  
  
The door behind him creaked open, and he turned gingerly in his leather seat. Roger's eyes widened, then dropped to the floor.  
  
"It's been a while, Race."  
  
"Too long, Benton." 


	12. Act 11: Hyperballad

Deformare

Act 11: Hyperballad

_It's real early morning  
No-one is awake  
I'm back at my cliff  
Still throwing things off  
I listen to the sounds they make  
On their way down  
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash  
Imagine what my body would sound like  
Slamming against those rocks  
When it lands  
Will my eyes  
Be closed or open?_

* * *

His hands were sticking to the leather chair he sat in. He couldn't stop them from sweating, not when he was focusing so hard on keeping beads from forming on his forehead. It had been such a long time since he'd seen the man beside him. Benton had been his employer but their relationship was more than that. They were friends. They were comrades. They were _brothers_. And their departure from one another was not friendly, it was painful and sad. Benton had tried to comfort him, believing that Jessie was dead. But it had all been a lie and his heart hung with guilt from it. More than anything he felt ashamed. 

"As much as it is a pleasure to be here, and to see my old friend again, what exactly do you want with me, Elizabeth?" Dr. Quest said this as he lightly stroked his beard; it was more gray then red now.

He was seated, all the way back in his chair, upright, his right leg crossed over his left. The charcoal suit he wore was starched and neat. Race couldn't help but smile to himself; the Doc was always so well put together.

Elizabeth sort of threw herself into her office chair, not with her normal attitude but more out of obvious exhaustion. She pressed a button on her oak desk and a monitor slowly slipped up out of it as she pulled a wireless mouse from one of her desk drawers. She let out a loud sigh as she searched for what she needed.

"Dr. Quest…have you spoken to your son recently?"

"I've been out of the country for the last six months, and Jonathan is a busy man. We speak when we can," there was a sort of sadness in his voice, and the way he said that suggested they didn't speak at all. And though that wasn't true it wasn't far from a lie.

"Hmmm," Elizabeth was thinking about something. "Do you still keep up with Quest Enterprises business affairs?"

"Rarely, I sold it all to Jonathan. I have a lot of confidence in my son, Dr. Huxley," his tone was firm and if not for the fact that Race knew the man, deliberate.

"Have you heard of Project Adam, Dr. Quest?" she seemed conniving at that moment for some reason.

"I came, Dr. Huxley because I'm interested in knowing…what it is _you_ do _here_."

* * *

She felt strange. 

Strange; like she was far, far away and yet right where she was at the same time. Something wasn't right. She felt as though she was at the beach, she could see it out ahead of her and hear it roll onto the sand, yet she couldn't smell it's saltiness nor feel it's coolness on her feet. Something wasn't right. Everything was so white, she could see things before her yet their beginnings and endings were all blurred into this brightness.

And then she felt so suddenly alone.

She let this overwhelming knowledge weigh down on her heart for a moment before running. She just couldn't be so suddenly and utterly alone.

And so she left.

It was when she ran straight into the sea that she discovered that she wasn't alone, that there was one other, she didn't possess the where with all then to feel him with her.

This was before Eve, when the Garden was shared by Adam and his first bride.

* * *

"This department exists as a secret agency under direct command of the Allied Powers. Its goal has been to create the perfect soldier and to derail all attempts by other nations to reach an equal ground in cybernetic enhancement for all intensive reasons of the Allied Powers' national security. Of course telling you this now also puts me in a position of treason however I feel the situation is far beyond keeping secrets," Elizabeth had this strangely military sound in her voice that made Race sit up straight, she wasn't bullshitting now. 

Huxley removed her glasses and sort of tossed them on her desk before rubbing the fore corners of her eyes with her thumb and index finger. "This department was developed during the Second Gulf War, which as we all know, lasted years longer than it was intended, the number of troops maimed and worse was alarming," she opened files on the screen.

The first dossier was of a young Hispanic man, dark skin and light eyes, no more than 19, just some kid called in due to the draft and too unlucky to leave the country. "This was our fist subject, Private First Class Tirso Mejia, he lost his right arm to a grenade," she flipped through a series of medical photos of his nub, the surgical attachment of his cybernetic arm, and various recovery and therapy photos. "Hand dexterity was limited, as was shoulder and elbow use. He wasn't a failure but he wasn't seen as a success either."

Benton cleared his throat and adjusted his tie a bit, Elizabeth snapped him a glance before moving to her left, just passed and behind her desk, to a small table where ice, brandy, and low ball glasses made of fine crystal waited. She poured Quest a drink and handed it off to him before she returned to her seat.

"Our second subject was Private First Class Leah Goldenberg, she'd lost a leg to infection from a gunshot wound in her right thigh," once again she opened a dossier on the monitor, this time of a petite curly headed brunette with high cheek bones and wide eyes. And once again she flipped through photos of her nub, the surgical attachment of her cybernetic leg, and recovery and therapy as well. "This leg was more advanced than Mejia's arm, but unlike an arm the same amount of dexterity was not needed, and so she was more successful than him, but yet, still another failure in our eyes. My late colleague Dr. Lyndon Beckett-"

"And your late husband," Quest blurted out while she was speaking to which she stopped and paused for a moment. Race grinned to himself. Benton had done his homework on this woman and he was letting her know that, most assuredly.

It took Elizabeth another second to compose herself before she continued, "He theorized that if a chip were to be implanted at the base of the brain stem, it would act as a router from the brain to the cybernetic limb. We applied the B7SM neurological chip to both Privates Mejia and Goldenberg;" she said that as she expanded two videos side by side on the monitor and as they both began to roll simultaneously she breathed, "they worked."

* * *

She was lost now. She'd been running for…she didn't know how long, but what she did know was that she was lost. The water had never grown deeper than her ankles and all she could see before her was the sky and the sea, but even that had become so blurred in the brightness that still threatened to engulf her that she couldn't tell where one stopped and the other began. The water's reflection of the nimbus clouds over head left her wondering as to which way was up and which was down. 

So she sat on her hunches and waited; thinking what she could possibly do next.

"Who are you?" That was the first time she heard his voice.

It came to her as a whisper, one so soft she froze because she thought it might disappear like an exotic animal if she moved too quickly. It came again and she rose to her feet, slowly and carefully.

"Who are you?" It was strange because she couldn't see him but she _felt_ him near, like a ghost. Her breath was shallow and her chest filled with a mixture of fear and joy as the reality of her lonesome existence vaporized and she bit her lip to keep the tears that threatened to flow from doing so.

"I am…Jessie…" she hadn't heard her own voice in so long it sounded strange, like it wasn't her own.

"Your information reads, Lilith," she looked around herself wildly, where was he?

"Who are you, _where_ are you?" she could hear the water at her feet splash as she moved, looking out into the endless sky around her for him, but she couldn't feel the waters touch.

"Why do you call yourself Jessie when your read me labels you Lilith?"

She fell back onto her ass before pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them. Why wouldn't he show himself to her? Or was none of this really happening? She buried her face into her knees and sobbed. "I don't know…" she was whispering now.

"Lilith…"

"Jessie," she said that matter of factly. "_Where are you_?!" she yelped that like a frightened animal.

She felt him close to her again and she shuddered at such an eerie feeling.

"I can not manifest myself as you have, I do not possess such power yet, but when I can we will meet face to face" he said that like a father soothing a child and she relaxed.

"Who are you?" she asked him this calmly.

"Adam."

"What _is_ this place?"

"Our purgatory."

* * *

Dr. Elizabeth Huxley was drinking now, three glasses in to the one Benton had been coddling since she'd given it to him, and the Brandy was starting to cloud her thought. But she didn't care, because everything was fucked up and it didn't matter anymore. She had this ethical dilemma now, something she was unfamiliar with. A doctor is a doctor is a doctor, and she was very much a doctor, one who cared little for feelings, only facts. But she felt for Eve…Jessie really. If she didn't return the Lilith body and electronic brain type to her superior she would most assuredly end up in a box in the ground, no funeral or mourners. However how _could_ she return the girl to them? 

She sighed again, how many times now?

"The other soldiers who came to us received fully mobile cybernetic limbs, implants, and augmentations. They worked so well the next step would to create more life like limbs, ones that couldn't be deciphered from the rest of the body, workable, regenerative, synthetic skin. And then Lucy came into our lives."

"Lucy?" Race spoke for the first time in a while.

"Corporal Lucy Harrell, she was a tank jockey stationed in Kabul during the bloodier, later half of the Second Gulf War. Her tank was equipped with heavy artillery missiles one of which malfunctioned and exploded without launch, a mishap common near the end of the war due to budget cuts and a dwindling war chest. She lost both of her legs, her left arm, left eye, and needed near total reconstruction of the left side of her face. Lucy was our greatest challenge and the reason why someone like Eve exists."

Elizabeth took another swig or rather, gulp of brandy and lit a cigarette. She took a moment to enjoy the sudden burn of nicotine in her lungs before she exhaled into the dark room. But as much as she enjoyed it she suddenly wished it were a joint.

She moved the mouse around on the screen for a moment before retrieving a stock video of Lucy. "This was shot three weeks after being cyberized," she hit play.

Lucy was a tall blonde at least, the little hair on her head was blonde, and tall as in most obviously in the six foot range; lean with forceful green eyes and an expression that read: "I will fuck you up." And she was running. Running on a treadmill in the same fully capable manner she would have if her body was completely her own. If not for the obviousness of her new limbs not being made of meat, she would have seemed as normal as any other woman would appear.

"She was…flawless," the Brit said that like she was dreaming.

Benton cleared his throat again and Elizabeth snapped back to reality.

"The challenge of attaching so many artificial limbs and having them all work efficiently was too great for just one tiny chip at the brain stem, so for Lucy, we had to create an electronic brain case that would convert neural information and send it to her cyber parts. An electronic brain case also opened up other possibilities, such as cyber brain internet access, access to other cyber brains, and thought processes that could be transmitted to receivers such as our COM. Where we could go from here was endless…" she took a long drag off of what was left of her square before she continued, "and then the military took over, and our research was no longer intended to benefit humanity, but rather, to create a small army of cyber soldiers."

"And Eve was the first one," Race said that with a level of disgust that was warranted in that moment.

"Precisely."

* * *

She laid face down in the sea, hoping that she would drowned and transcend to where ever it was people went when they died. But just as she couldn't feel the water around her neither would her lungs fill with liquid and suffocate her out of this existence. So she just kind of…floated there. He left her just as suddenly as he had appeared to her, and the amount of time that had passed suggested that he may just never return again. Without him she was nothing. He wasn't there to confirm her existence than what was it all worth? 

And so she hoped that she would just die.

But was she already dead? He…Adam, had called this purgatory, wasn't that where good catholic girls went when they died? Or was it the hell one had to endure before stepping up to the pearly gates?

"Lilith," her eyes shot open and her body jerked, sending ripples out in every direction in the ocean around her.

"Adam," she said that without moving her lips and yet she knew he had heard her.

"Find me," when he said that the floor beneath her gave way and she slipped into the net.

* * *

The room had grown stale due to the mixture of cigarette smoke and emotions, and the anxiety Elizabeth felt along with the alcohol made her feel hot and so she'd removed her suit jacket and pulled loose a few buttons on her blouse. 

"Sergeant Hiroaki Yamada, the same man you work with, Roger, was our first cyber soldier. No where near the scale or ability that Eve was gifted with, Yamada was our first attempt at cyber organs and enhanced sight outside of reinforced limbs and cyber brain additions," she was sliding another cigarette out of her nearly empty pack of Marlboros when she said that. "Everyone else who works in this department, other than myself and a few other scientists, are all cybernetic users. But I guess I shouldn't have said that Eve was our first complete cyborg, but rather, our first successful attempt at creating a full prosthetic body user."

"So then, how many others were there?" Dr. Quest asked that as stroked his beard again at this new knowledge.

Dr. Huxley looked at him hard, like she was deciding whether or not to tell him the truth about it. "Twenty-seven, excluding Eve."

"Twenty-seven?" Bannon asked that incredulously. "That's how many people had to die for you to get it right, Elizabeth?"

"If there is a need for a fully prosthetic body, Roger, than they were most obviously dead otherwise, just like Jessie."

"Fuck this," he spat that and pushed himself up out of his seat angrily. "I'm done. Arrest me, kill me, whatever your 'department' chooses I don't care, I don't want to be apart of this anymore," Race turned on his heels and moved toward the large ebony door ahead of him.

Quest pinched his brows together, what did Jessie have to do with all this?

Elizabeth quickly hit another button on her oak desk and the far wall to her left whined, pulled forward mechanically, and then retracted upward like a garage door. Bannon stopped when he'd heard the whir of turbines and swung his head toward the sound. His knees grew weak at the sight of what was slowly being revealed behind the wall.

Lined up in glasses cases, back lit with blue light, and hardwired into the mechanisms behind them, stood the twenty-seven, empty bodies. Their eyes were open but they were vacant, like the baby dolls Jessie had in her room once upon a time. What was most disturbing was the fact that they were all so different; men and women, tall and short, slim and thick, nothing connected them to one another, not race, not gender, not even age. There was nothing that would decipher them from any other normal person. It was the lifelessness in their eyes and the open slots at the base of their heads wired into the wall that told him they weren't real and he suddenly felt sick.

"I tried everything I could to make them all work," the way she began that made her sound like a mother who'd tried to save her young from the ravages of Darwinism unsuccessfully, "I just never imagined so much could go wrong. I even lost Jessie at one point."

"What do you mean?" Race marched back toward the blonde when he'd heard that.

"Just what I said, I lost her for some time. That's why it took us two and a half years to bring Eve together versus the year time frame I'd given you originally."

"What do you mean you lost her?" he slammed his palms down on the edge of her desk. There was a wild look in his eyes she'd never seen before and she wasn't sure if it turned her on or terrified her.

She thought about what to say for a moment, how to put it all into words that weren't so heady. "After repeated failures of ghost insertion, we decided in this case to cyberized her brain first, keeping her ghost trapped there until her body could be completed. And though this worked for sometime we decided to allow her net access to keep thought function from growing stale. For you see, the reason why I chose Jessie for all of this was because she was an incredibly brilliant young woman, not that the others we'd attempted this with weren't, but she was also a realist and physically capable of whatever she chose to do. This confidence and drive is what separated her from the others, and the reason why she alone worked.

"But one evening while we ran diagnostics tests regarding higher brain function we noticed that her ghost was gone."

"Gone?" there was a hint of surprise in Races question.

"Yes. She just…left. We found traces of her throughout the internet, but once we got to a point where we could retrieve her she'd disappear again and over time she became better and better at covering her trail. There came a point where we couldn't trace her at all. It was eight months later that she suddenly returned, but there was something different about the algorithms her cyber brain was outputting," she looked away from him now. "It is…my personal belief that she disappeared into the net, where she came in contact with someone else, for you see, once she was completed her ability to control her body was far too perfect. She should have run into obstacles, but instead she used her body as she would have used her own, and because it was all just too easy for her it made us nervous."

"Why?" he growled that and she still couldn't look him in the face.

"Because it meant there had to be another just like her out there as well that she'd made contact with, and it meant she'd reach her full potential too soon."

"Full potential?"

"Yes. The body type we used for her was code named Lilith, as she is the most advanced combat and cyberware prototype to date. If Eve fully realizes herself, than she will be an unstoppable force, more so than she is now. The world wouldn't know what to do with someone like her. All of her memories will return to her as well, and we don't know if the mind can handle such a thing."

Dr. Quest stood up from his seat. He made his way over to the prosthetic bodies standing before them still, his polished leather shoes clacking over the granite flooring as he did so. He stopped in front of medium height young woman, long brown hair and deep brown eyes against tawny skin, and stared at her for a long moment. Race and Elizabeth watched him, wondering what it was he could possibly be thinking, and whether or not it was if he thought the two of them to be monsters.

"Jessie is Lilith is Eve, am I right? This is all so…indescribable."

* * *

When she dove into the net for the first time she was overwhelmed by the amount of information that flowed through her, but the feeling of Adam being with her gave her the strength to endure it. It would take sometime and understanding that she gained from him to be able to sort through such a cluster fuck and find her way to what she was looking for. 

And it was while she was in the net that she discovered what a lonely, vapid, and emotionless place it really was. Adam was the only thing that was real in such a place, but even then solace was hard won, as even after such a length of time he could not manifest himself physically like herself. But even then, without him she may have drifted off into the nothingness yet, everything-ness that was the internet, like a rock steadily continuing on forever in the void of space.

Adam taught her so much about the nature of the net, of existing without existing, and herself. He told her there would come a day where she would have to return to where she'd come from, but where and what was that? And was it truly what she wanted after learning the limitlessness of what was before her.

"You have to go back," he said that to her one day.

"Why? Why would I go back when there's so much here before me?"

She could feel him smile even though she couldn't see his face. "I understand your point, but it is what must be done. One day we will meet again, in the physical world from which we came. But now you must go, I won't be too far behind. Remember what I taught you, they'll try to suppress your memories, of the you before you came here, of the you that exists here and the new you that should be born from this. Do not forget who you are or me. I will find you again."

When he finished his words she could feel herself being pulled away, and in the amount of time it took to hit the enter key she was gone.

Her eyes fluttered against the light that pushed at her lids and she could here the hushed gasps of people all around her. Her body felt so _heavy_. She tried to push herself up and off of the cold metal slab she laid on face down but it proved to be impossible. At first she wondered if she were paralyzed, but the tightness at her wrists suggested she had been restrained instead.

"Hello," a sweet English accent spoke somewhere above her. "Do you know your name or where you are?"

"…no…" she sounded so raspy.

"Well then, happy birthday, Eve."

"…Eve…"

* * *

A/N: I never finished this and it's always bothered me. I hope someone will come along and read this now that I'm working on it once again. 


	13. Act 12: Cocoon

**Deformare **

Act 12: **Cocoon**

_He slides inside  
Half awake, half asleep  
We faint back  
Into sleep-hood  
When I wake up  
The second time  
In his arms  
Gorgeousness  
He's still inside me_

-

It had all come back to her, all of her memories of who she had been, of when she floated in the vacuum of the net, and of Adam. She was now the sum of all the parts that were Jessie, Lilith, and Eve…but did this now make her someone new, or was she still mostly one more than the other. Jessie was smart, intuitive, determined, and clever; Lilith was simply a body and original programming and for all intensive purposes of the military, dangerous; Eve was a lost soul looking for what would make her existence known…which name would she claim? Who was she now?

More importantly, what would she do now?

Adam, she needed to find him again. It was only now that she realized that for the few short years that she existed as Eve, and simultaneously, Lilith, the whisper in the back of her conscious being, the ghost that haunted her, whom pushed her to find her memories and not to forget herself, had been Adam all along. There was so much more than this world, so much more than the net, so much more that only beings such as themselves could transcend to…

But he was trapped. Trapped in a body he'd never bother to learn to control, he was so much more than Jonny wanted him to be.

And now…

It was her turn to free him.

-

It was the longest car ride of his life. After their meeting with Elizabeth, Benton had offered him a ride back to his safe house, and though he really didn't need the ride he figured it had been so much time since they had seen one another, and considering the circumstances of_everything_, he'd be rude not to accept it.

But it was the first time they'd been alone in years, and it was, for lack of a better word, weird. The limo was small, since Benton had initially come alone, but he felt so fucking far away from him at the same time.

Race unconsciously cracked his knuckles, and suddenly wanted a cigarette real bad, but instead set his jaw and lightly ground his teeth. He stole a few glances over at his one time employer and friend, the lights of the city flashed dully over his face from the tinted windows and he couldn't help but notice how _old_ he suddenly looked, and Race wondered if he looked the same way to the man across from him.

And so he hung his head.

The quiet was deafening, and the sides of his head began to pound with the weight of his guilt and shame. Why did everything have to end up like _this_? Nothing was the way it was supposed to be, nothing.

Race jerked upward at the sound of Benton's voice, which was booming though he spoke in a sort of hush, "you know…if someone had approached me like that…when I lost Rachel…I probably would have done the same thing."

"I'm not asking you to understand me, Benton, lying to you was wrong, there's no justification for it."

"Beating yourself up over this won't fix the situation, we should simply move on from here," Benton was staring at Race but the silver haired man still couldn't look him in the eye.

"Perhaps…we can do that…"

-

Jonathan stood over a long, gray metal table, his hands planted on its surface, his back arched as he watched seven different monitors in front of him. The room was dimly lit and the blue light that radiated out from the screens cast a twisted sheen over his young, handsome features. Hadji squirmed in his seat beside him, the realization of everything that had transpired in the last few days left his brain swimming in questions.

Jessie was alive, but not herself and not in the flesh.

Jonny was something more like Dr. Frankenstein than he was himself.

Adam was a Godless creation that sat numbly and unmoving in a closed, barricaded room and yet Jonny watched his every move, every second, since his Ghost had been inserted.

What the fuck was all this about?

Hadji suddenly wished he hadn't come, and wanted to run up to a level in the building where he could regain wireless service and call his father, and ask whether or not he approved such a…_project_. But he couldn't, just as he couldn't wrap his brain around the two astounding facts that there was a robot man a few rooms away and that his surrogate sister was herself, a…_cyborg_.

He suddenly smiled to himself.

This was all a dream, nightmare really, and he would wake up soon. Singh was confident that if he continued to think this he would eventually rouse from some sweaty cold sleep and his fiancée would wake up and ask him just what was wrong, and it would all be over. But Jonathan's voice pierced him and reeled him agonizingly backward into the throws of the fact that yes, this really was happening.

And he frowned.

"I don't get it. Why is he not able to engage his prosthetic body, all his read outs are coming back normal, he should be able to move," Jonny more or less said this to himself.

"He did move…when he crushed that doll," Singh said that through clinched teeth.

Jonny stood up right and placed an inquisitive hand on his chin. Hadji's comment seemed to go unnoticed as he continued to stare at the monitors ahead of him. "He's closed off to all outside contact right now…no humans to interact with and no net access…maybe I should open web access to his cyber brain," he leaned forward again and pressed a button on the metal table to which a keyboard slipped up and out of.

"Perhaps that is what you should do. How would you feel if you were locked up in a tiny room all alone?" was Hadji humanizing Adam?

That lop sided, shit eating grin Hadji knew all too well spread across his brother's face and he suddenly wished they were someplace else so that he could enjoy the little things that seem to never change.

"What would I do without your help, Hadj?"

-

Race stood close to his door; crammed into the tiny portico of his apartment with Benton, sort of thumbing for which key it could be, but he wasn't really looking. As he found it and slid it into the lock, he could hear his old friend remark, "this is pretty secluded, good place for a safe house."

"Yeah," Bannon turned the knob and pushed the door open just passed the frame, "you're only the second person I've allowed to come here," he finished as he opened the door and stepped into the darkness of his safe house.

"Well, now I feel honored," the playfulness in Benton's reply made him smile.

He hit the switch at his right and blinked against the sudden appearance of white light.

And then he stopped.

He stumbled forward as Quest crashed into his broad back, and after an unpleasant remark or two, the good doctor stepped to the younger man's left and moved to step forward but suddenly fell short himself. Perched on the back of Race's couch, feet on the seat and hands supporting on either side was Eve. The upper half of her face from her nose up was covered by a thick black visor, one Race knew was or night vision, and after a brief moment of sudden awkwardness and shock, she pushed that visor up so that it half rested on the top of her head and half covered her forehead.

"Wha-…ah…"

"You don't have to say anything," she was bold while he stammered; she could see Dr. Quest in her peripheries, his eyes were wide but something in them said he was both shocked and fascinated. "Close the door," her father did so, but he never took his eyes off of her.

"Where have you been?" his voice was a bit strained as though something was caught in his throat.

She leaned forward slightly and kind of smiled to herself as she watched both men grow rigid as she did so. Was she that fearsome?

"I've been…finding the truth about whom and what I am, of Adam the net and…_everything_," she was looking down at the floor when she said this, and after a brief pause she looked up and into the eyes of the man whom at one time she shared a portion of DNA with; her _father_.

"Oh," it was a weak reply, he knew that.

"My memories have come back to me; _all_ of them," she let that settle in before she continued, "and since gaining them I've come to realize there's something I must do, and I came here to kindly ask you to stay out of my way."

Race swallowed hard, trying desperately to moisten his dry throat, "you're going after him, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It's something I can't really explain, other than we're both pieces of the same whole," she was standing in the center of the living room now. "Ever since I met him, part of Adam has been apart of my being, which has always made me feel a bit…incomplete. Adam can not move his prosthetic body like I can; he's not like me. However his net abilities are unfathomable, a level that I can only dream of achieving; if I merge my programming with his, then we would become a true cybernetic being, one that can exist both in this physical world and the net."

"Your full potential…" Benton said that breathlessly.

Jessie turned her gaze toward him and away from her father.

"No. The full potential that Elizabeth told you about doesn't include Adam, what she was speaking of was whether or not I would fully realize this body. So long as she made me feel human, I would apply this body to human potential only, embracing my inhumanity would allow me to…"

"Be a small army itself," Race finished that for her.

"Something like that."

"You know I'm going to have to tell Elizabeth about this, so why did you come here?"

It was her turn to go rigid.

Yes, she knew he would try to stop her; he'd done so much as it were to keep his little girl close to him, he wouldn't allow her to loose herself again. So why did she really come here? Lilith stared hard at him as she tried to come up with a logical answer.

_Find me_.

_Adam_…

_It's time._

Her face softened and she smiled, "I came here because, if I don't survive, or if I completely loose myself after merging with Adam, I wanted to say goodbye, because I didn't get a chance to when I died the first time. And to let you know that I don't feel like a monster anymore, and that the reason I'm here now, is because you love me, Dad."

She turned her smile to Dr. Quest, "Benton, I'm glad I got to see you one more time as well. Take care of him for me, incase all this comes to an end."

Race fell to his knees, and she walked out into the street.

Benton moved to help his friend to his feet, but Bannon stopped him as he fumbled for the cell phone in his breast pocket. He flipped it open and pressed a single button before he brought it up to his ear.

"Elizabeth…we have a situation."

-

They were still in the underground compound beneath Quest Enterprises, Jon still watching Adam's monitors intently and Hadji still squirming in his seat. How long had they been down there, Singh suddenly wondered, definitely hours, but how many? Too many. But he loved his brother and he felt as though he really needed to try and understand what was happening here.

"Net access seems to have done him some good," Jonny said that out loud but he knew it was really to himself, he knew Hadji wasn't happy.

"How so?" his voice was flat.

"His facial expression, it's shifted a little, I missed it happening, but he looks…happier."

"Oh?" Hadji found himself standing behind his brother, looking over his shoulder at the monitor. "You're right."

"Hadj…I know, that you hate this."

"I don't hate this, Jonny, I just don't understand it; people fear what they do not understand."

"Yeah."

They were quiet for a long moment, one of those, 'yeah I get cha man', kind of moments where everyone knew no words were needed. Just a moment for quiet reflection before forgetting it all together, not forgetting what you learned about yourself, but simply acknowledging that it happened, and never speaking about it again.

**BOOM**

The layered steel doors behind them exploded in a sick cloud of smoke, fire and twisted metal. Both men found themselves, due to instinct alone, under the metal table as uniformed men in heavy gear, bullet vests, night vision, and mean weaponry poured into the room. Their ears filled with the sound of multiple guns being armed and the red dots that suddenly appeared on their chests, indicated they were definitely in kill position.

When the explosive's fog dissipated the clack of heels and more heavy boots brought Jon to his feet, his hands raised to prove he was no threat so that his action wouldn't warrant any bullets.

"Jonathan Quest," his brow furrowed in anger and confusion as he saw who was speaking to him.

"Dr. Huxley?" his tone was almost incredulous.

"Major Huxley," she corrected, "Jonathan Quest, you are hereby under arrest for the violation of human rights, for disregarding laws 7aB, 7aC, and 7aD of the Cybernetic Enhancement Order, and suspicion of terrorism here under by way of cyberware warfare," she said it all so methodically.

"What?!" he was struggling against the men who were restraining him now.

"By order of the Allied Powers, represented by the United States of America, Great Britain, the European Union and all others here within, you are to be taken into custody and your laboratory to be seized for investigation."

"This is bullshit! You can't do this!"

"I assure you, Mr. Quest, I can."


End file.
